oe oM its 5~ - ae oe 
eee, Serer yes ewe ee 5 ‘ fae 
ard, ; 

Rte Ss ‘ 


erat 
morta Mira 
‘ Tey 


- 
- 


7 8 
LASS 


72 nm 
aves, 


ae 


<a 


¢ Fe 
eee 2 ; i a8 Pe 
Oe , =, ¥ ; 


moe 


v- 


pees fT on 
ee Exe 


OPES 
crn eee 


Ole 


—yeeters verre 


semen rete nees 









aden OF PRING 
SS 


eels PPT 


ie 






~ 
OT aah 


Division B L oh 5 io 
Section » I e ert 


copy 


uty 


t } Bic 


rote mah ‘i 


try * a: 











Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/worshipofnaturevOOfraz 





7, , - r } 
as y poe ri . 


THE WORSHIP OF NATURE | 


yer, - a Y 
e @ 


MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 


LONDON « BOMBAY * CALCUTTA «+ MADRAS 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


NEW YORK « BOSTON ° CHICAGO 
DALLAS + SAN FRANCISCO 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
. TORONTO 


THE 


WORSHIP OF NATURE 





BY 


Sika Avi eGhORGE “@RAZER 


O.M., F.R.S., F.B.A. 


FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 


VOLUME I 


jQew Bork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1926 


All rights reserved 


Copyright, 1926, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 





Printed and published March, 1920. 


Printed in the United States of America 


THIS volume contains the whole of the Gifford Lectures 
delivered by me before the University of Edinburgh in 
the years 1924 and 1925, together with much additional 
matter which could not be compressed within the limits 
of twenty lectures. In the sequel I propose to complete 
the survey of the Worship of the Sun and to deal with the 
personification and worship of other aspects of nature, both 
inanimate and animate. 


J. G. FRAZER. 


22nd December 1925. 





CO NEERING TS 


AUTHOR’S NOTE 


TABLE OF CONTENTS : A ’ : : 


Cle Welle Tho] oI 


INTRODUCTION 


The search for the real 

The imaginary real world behind the ate aah 

The materialistic and the spiritualistic theory 

Need for simplification and unification of phenomena 

Modern simplifications in physics and biology 

The apparent simplifications of science probably illusory 

Similar simplifications in the history of religion 

Primitive animism, the multitude of spirits : 

The passing of the gods . : : . 

Animism replaced by polytheism . ‘ 

Polytheism replaced by monotheism 28 

Both materialism and ag profess to ern the fra eerie 
reality 

The present analysis of matter Aopen not an 

Incapacity of the human mind to grasp the infinities 

The aim of the Gifford lectures 

The present lectures deal with the religion i bec pepe 

The religions of civilized antiquity also to be considered 

Exceptional position of the religion of Israel 

Two forms of natural religion, the hat of nature en re aire 
of the dead . ; 

The worship of nature based on the Me rRcation of Otte 
phenomena . 

The worship of the dead assumes the HENrtAlicy af the Soul 

: vil : 


Gn 
OD COMA RWWD 


— 


vill THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


GEA Bere Lt 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY AMONG THE ARYAN PEOPLES 
OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. Zhe Worshtp of the Sky in general eae 
Universality and impressiveness of the sky . ; : ‘ 19 


Professor Pettazzoni on the worship of the sky : : : 20 


§ 2. Zhe Worship of the Sky among the Vedic [Indians 


Professor Macdonell on Vedic mythology . : sa : 20-22 
Two Vedic Sky-gods, Dyaus and Varuna . ; : ; 22 
Father Heaven (Dyaus pitav) and Mother Earth. d , 22-27 
The other Vedic Sky-god Varuna . : : ; : 27-31 
Varuna equivalent to the Greek Uranus. ; : : 27 
Moral character of Varuna : - ; : : 29 
Relation of Varuna to Mitra : : ; : ; 30 
Dyaus perhaps older than Varuna . ‘ ; : , 31 


§ 3. Zhe Worship of the Sky among the ancient Iranians 


Herodotus on the religion of the ancient Persians . : F 32 
Theory that Ahura Mazda was a personification of the sky . : 32-34 
This theory rejected by some scholars 2 ; 4 : 34-35 


§ 4. The Worship of the Sky among the ancient Greeks 


Two Greek Sky-gods, Zeus"and Uranus. : 3 ; 35-36 
Uranus mutilated by his son Cronus : é : i 36-37 
Cronus deposed by Zeus . ; : 37-38 
Cronus an obscure figure in Greek aytioe : : 39 
His mutilation perhaps a myth of the separation of earth aie Sky, Pe 40 
The marriage of Sky and Earth in Greek poetry . : ; 41-42 
Sky and Earth invoked in oaths . : : : : 42 
Zeus as a Sky-god ; : : ‘ : ed 42-43 
Zeus as god of rain : ; ‘ = : 43-45 
Ceremony to avert hail-clouds at leer : F 4 : 45 
Aristophanes on the divinity of clouds ; : : ' 46 
Zeus the god of thunder and lightning ‘ ‘ ; : 47 
Zeus as a god of cool breezes in Ceos : : : 4 48 
Tendency of Zeus to absorb the other gods A : ; 48-49 
Aeschylus on the universality of Zeus ; : : : 49 
Zeus identified with the ether or the air. : . MER 49-51 
Hymn of Cleanthes to Zeus : : : 51-52 
Aratus on the omnipresence and Honcacente of Zeus : E 52-53 


The providential character and fatherhood of Zeus . : : 53-54 


CONTENTS 


The universal divinity of Zeus 
The Zeus of Phidias 
Zeus and Uranus compared to Dyas and Vara 


§ 5. The Worship of the Sky among the ancient Romans 


The Sky-god Jupiter, head of the Roman sna 
Jupiter as the god of rain 

Jupiter as the god of thunder and lightning 

Jupiter Best and Greatest . ‘ 4 


CHAPTER Tf 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY AMONG NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 


OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. The Worship of the Sky among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians 


The Sumerians in Babylonia ; 

The Assyrians and their literary documents ; 
The great Babylonian gods personifications of natural powers 
The Babylonian trinity, Anu, Bel, and Ea 

Anu the Sky-god 

The Sky-god Anu and the Thunder: -god Adad 

Antu or Antum, the wife of Anu 


§ 2. The Worship of the Sky among the ancient Egyptians 


The Sky-goddess Nut married to the Earth-god Seb or Keb 
The separation of Sky and Earth by Shu : 

Nut the Mother of the Gods 

The sky conceived as a heavenly cow 


ilo brated 79 CA g Reed 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY AMONG THE CIVILIZED 
PEOPLES OF THE FAR. EAST 
§ 1. Zhe Worship of the Sky in China 


Heaven or the Sky the Supreme God in the Chinese pantheon 
The worship of Heaven the religion of the State rather than of the 


people ; 
The great sacrifice to reas at ine winter solstice,. 
The great altar of Heaven at Peking : 


The Emperor’s remonstrances with Heaven in time of drought 
The worship of the Sky among the Lo-lo p’o 
§ 2. The Worship of the Sky tn Corea 


Siang-tiei, the Supreme God, identified with the Sky 
Sacrifices to the Supreme Being or the Sky in time of drought 


62-63 
63-64 
64-65 
65-66 
66-67 
68-69 

70 


70-71 
71-72 
72 
73 


74-75 


75-76 
76-78 

Tid 
79-80 
80-82 


82 
83-84 


x THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


§ 3. The Worship of the Sky in Annam 


The Sky personified as a wise and beneficent deity . 
The Emperor of Jade and his two seciyetaries , : 
The descent of the Sky-god’s daughter to earth , . 


CHAPERER -V 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA 


Sok. 


The worship of the Sky well developed in Africa 

The worship of the Sky in Upper Senegal . ae 

The worship of the Sky in the interior of the Ivory Coast 

The worship of the Sky in the interior of the Gold Coast 

The Tshi-, Ewe-, and Yoruba-speaking peoples 

The Sky-god Onyame or ’Nyami among the Ashantis 

Miss Kingsley and Sir A. B, Ellis on the Sky-god in West Africa 
Stone celts as the Sky-god’s axes . : . 

Altars of the Sky-god and offerings to him . 

Oaths by the Sky and Earth 

The West African Sky-god not borrowed ee Eurosean: 

The Ashantis prefer polytheism to monotheism 

The worship of ancestral spirits the main part of Ashanti religion 
R. S. Rattray on Ashanti and English land laws 


Tshi story of the Origin of Death: 
and the goat 


The Sky-god Mawu of the Ewe- ects eae 

Why Mawtu retired from earth to heaven 

Mawu thought to control the rain . 

Mawu too high and mighty to trouble apont human affairs 
The worship of Mawu 

Story of the Origin of Death : vietean and tHe aes 
Uwolowu, the Sky-god of the Akposos in Togo 


Story of the Origin of Death: the Two piarratga tT the Sane ard 
the frog : ‘ ° 


Story of the origin of ete sun and moon 

The Yoruba-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast 

Olorun, the Sky-god of the Yorubas 

The northern tribes of Nigeria 

Their belief in a great Sky-god, often dentihed with the Sin 
The power of rain-making shared with the Sky-god by the divine king 
The divine king formerly killed after seven years 4 

Osa, the Sky-god of the Edo-speaking people of Benin 

Abassi or Obumo, the Supreme God of the Ibibios . 

I{uman sacrifices offered to Abassi Obumo . 


The Worship of the Sky in Western Africa 


the Two wien sto the sheep 


PAGE 
85-86 
86-87 
87-88 


89-90 
90-93 
94 
94-96 
96-97 
98-103 
98-99 
99-100 
Ioo-I0OlL 
Io! 
IO1-103 
103-104 
104 
104-105 


105-106 
106-115 
109 
109-110 
110 
I1I-114 
114 
1*5-118 


117 

118 
118-119 
L1Q-121 
121-122 
122-124 
124-125 
125-126 
126-127 
127-128 
128-129 


CONTENTS 


The Supreme God Abassi among the people of Calabar 

The Sky-god Abassi or Osowa in the Obubura Hill district . ; 

The Sky-god Obassi Osaw and the Earth-god Obassi Nsi among 
the Ekoi 

Story of the Origin of Dene 
the duck . ‘ 

How fire was stolen from the Ronee of Obassi Osaw 

The Supreme God Obashi among the Ekoi of Cameroons 

Nzame or Nsambe, the Supreme God of the Fan 

Story of the, Origin of Death: the Two merege the erantelenn 
and the'tizard 

Zambi or Nsambi, the Supreme God of ie Bafioti in Teenne 

Why Nsambi retired from earth to heaven . 

The Good God and the Bad God . ; 

Nsambi indifferent to human affairs and seldom Heatly! tO, 


the Two Messengers, the frog and 


§ 2. Zhe Worship of the Sky in the Valley of the Congo 


Belief of the Congo peoples in a Supreme God Nzambi 

The conception of Nzambi of native origin . 

Various names for the Supreme Being in the valley i the conee 

The name Nzambi applied to whatever is mysterious 

Belief of the Upotos in a Sky-god Libanza . 

The earthly origin and adventures of Libanza 

The ascent of Libanza to heaven : 

The souls of the dead with Libanza in heaven 

Story of the Origin of Death: Libanza, the Moon sande and ine 
Earth people : A : 

Efile Mokulu, the Supreme God of the Perce 


§ 3. Zhe Worship of the Sky tn Southern Africa 


Ndyambi or Ndyambi Karunga, the great god of the Herero 
The ancestral souls worshipped rather than Ndyambi Karunga . 
Kalunga, the god of the Ovambo, the Bapindji and the Badjok 


§ 4. Zhe Worship of the Sky in Eastern Africa 


Belief in a great Sky-god widely diffused in Africa . 

Belief of the Thonga in a great power Tilo, identified with the Sky 

Twins closely associated with heaven (Tilo) and rain 

- Belief of the Ba-ila in a great Sky-god Leza 

Leza associated with thunder, lightning, wind, and rain 

Leza conceived as a moral being, a lawgiver 

The worship of Leza distinct from the worship of ancestral Pree 

Prayers to Leza . 

Story of the Origin mf cei : 
mother-in-law 

The mourning for Mwana Leza, fre son of we Sky- ed 

VOL, I 


Leza, his mothe and his 


x1 

PAGE 
129-130 
130-131 


131-133 


133-134 
134 
135 
135-136 


136 
136-140 
138-139 

139 

140 


141-146 

142 
142-143 
145-146 
146-149 
146-148 

148 
148-149 


149 
149-150 


150-151 
151-152 
152-153 


153-154 
154-155 
155-156 
156-166 
156-158 

158 

159 
159-162 


162 
163-165 
b 


xil THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


Story of the Origin of Death: 
and the hare 

Belief of the Ba-Kaonde in a great ‘Sky sah Lesa 

Story of the Origin of Death: Lesa and the honey-guide bird 

Belief of the Alunda in a Creator-god Nzambi 3 

Story of the Origin of Death: Nzambi, men, and the moon . 

Leza (Lesa) the general name for the Sky-god in South-Central Africa 

Belief of the Barotse in a great god Niambe, personified by the Sun . 

Worship of dead kings among the Barotse . 

Belief of the Louyi in a Sky-god Nyambe 

Ascent of Nyambe to the sky on a spider’s web 

Story of the Origin of Death: Nyambe, his dog, and his wether in- ee 

Story of the Origin of Death: the Two Messengers, the chameleon 
and the hare 

An African Tower of Babel . 

Nyambe identified with the Sun by the Tayi 

Belief of the Soubiya in a Sky-god Leza 

An African Tower of Babel 

Sacred trees in the worship of Leza 

Story of the Origin of Death: a man, his dog, and his aiathers -in- He 

Story of the Origin of Death: the Two Messengers, the chameleon 
and the lizard 

The Nyanja or Manganja : 

Mulungu and other names for God among the Nyanja 

Prayers of the Nyanja for rain 

Belief of the Yaos in a Creator-god nralnn ee : 

The word mzlungu also means any human soul after death . 

Worship of the dead among the Yaos : 

Ambiguity of the double use of the word mulungu . 

Belief of the Angoni in a Supreme God whose worship is eclipsed ie 
that of the ancestral spirits 

Chiwuta, the Creator-god of the fae ; 

Leza, the Supreme God of the tribes of Northern Ruadene ; 

Story of the Origin of Death: the two bundles 

Leza thought to stand aloof from the affairs of this lower od 

Prayers and sacrifices offered to the ancestral spirits, not to Leza 

Belief of the Konde in a great god Mbamba or Kiara (Kyala) 

Belief of the Konde in a devil Mbassi (Mbasi) 

Anything great of its kind called by the name of God (Kyala) 

Sacred groves and grottos of Kiara: offerings to him : . 

Story of the Origin of Death: the two Messengers, the sheep and 
the dog 

Belief of the Wakulwe in a SF eer: god Nguluwi ENeaky!) 

Mwawa, an African Satan 4 . ; 

Nguluwi and the great flood 

An African ‘i ower of Babel 5 : 

Story of the Origin of Death: the sheep and the dog 

The Supreme God identified with the Sun as Katema or Ilanzi 


the Two Messengers, the chameleon 


PAGE 


165 
166-168 
167-168 
168-169 

169 

169 
170-171 
171-172 
172-174 

i pe 
172-173 


173 
173 
173 
174-177 
174 
174-175 
176 


177 
177-178 
178 
179 
180-181 
181 
181-182 
182-183 


183-184 
184-185 
185 
185 
185-186 
186-187 
187-192 
188 
189 
190-192 


192-193 
193-196 
194 
194-195 
195 
195-196 
197 | 


CONTENTS 


The souls of the dead worshipped rather than the Supreme God 

Story of the Origin of Death and the immortality of serpents 

Belief of the Wahehe in a Supreme God vguruhi ; 

Belief of the Wapare in a Creator-god Kyumbi (Kiumbe) identified 
with the Sun 

An African Tower of Babel 

Mount Kilimanjaro, the African Olympus 

The Wachagga of Mount Kilimanjaro 

Ruwa, the great god of the Rocce either the Sky or Ny Sun 

Ruwa, the Creator of man i , A 

Moral character of Ruwa . ; 

The dead worshipped more than Ruwa 

Sacrifices and prayers to Ruwa 

Story of the Origin of Death : the foreaien fruit 

Another story of the Origin of Death: the cast skin and the Renate 


grandchild 4 : 
Other Chagga versions of the Ouse of Death : the cast skin, the 
two pots: the moon and the perverted message: the forbidden 


fruit and the serpent . 

Resemblances of Chagga myths to Biblical oy of the Fall af Man 

Suggested link between the Hebrew and the Chagga story ; 

African stories of the mortality of man contrasted with the immortality 
of serpents . 

The Biblical story of the Fall of Man paid: denied from attics 

Belief of the Warundi (Barundi) and Banyarunda in a Supreme God 
Imana 

The real religion of the Warandi the marhis of +h dead 

Belief in a Supreme Being Rugaba among the natives of Kiziba 

The Baganda : their national gods dead men: 
kings 

Belief of the Baganda in a iSuprente Being erndne 

The Bahuma or Banyankole 

Belief of the Bahuma in a Sky-god Rabange 

The religion of the Bahuma mainly a worship of the dead 

The Bambwa acknowledge but do not worship a Creator 

The Banyoro and their country : 

Belief of the Banyoro in a Creator-god Ruhanga 

Prayers and sacrifices to Ruhanga for rain 

Story of the Origin of Death: the woman and the aap 

Story of the Origin of Death: the woman, the chameleon, and the 
moon 

The Basoga 

Belief of the Basoga in a pumrene ‘Bane Katonda or Mulkartia 

The Supreme Being incarnate in children born with their teeth cut 

Among the Basoga the worship of the Creator overshadowed by the 
worship of the dead . 

- Mount Elgon, its scenery and its caves 

The Bagesu of Mount Elgon, their cannibalism 


their worship of dead 


~ 232- 


Xili 
PAGE 
197-198 
199 
199-200 


200-203 

201 
203-204 

205 
205-207 
207-208 
208-209 
209-210 
ZilartR 
213-214 


214-216 


216-218 
218-220 
220-221 


221-223 
223-224 


224-226 
225 
227 


227-228 
228-229 
229-230 

230 

Zar 

2a 
-232 
233 
233-234 
234-235 


231 


235-236 
236-237 

237 
237-238 


239 
239-240 
241 


Xiv THE WORSEHLERWOLONVA TORE 

Belief of the Bagesu in a Creator called Weri Kubumba 

Offerings to the Creator and ceremonies at the circumcision of boys 

Sacrifices offered by the Bagesu to the Creator in sickness 

Belief of the Wawanga in a god Were 

The Akamba of Kenya and their country 

Belief of the Akamba in a Sky-god Mulungu or Engai 

Prayer and sacrifice offered to Mulungu or Engai for rain 

Shrines and sacred trees of Mulungu or Engai 

Sacrifice to Engai after capturing cattle 

Prayer of the dead to Engai for rebirth 

Blood brotherhood sanctioned by Engai 

Prayer and sacrifice to Engai in sickness : 

Engai associated with rain, shooting stars, and eclipses 

Engai associated with sacred fig-trees 

Story of the Origin of Death: 
chameleon 

Another version of the same story oe the pe of Death 

The Akikuyu and their country 

Belief of the Akikuyu in a great god Eng or Maidned 

The wild fig-tree sacred to Engai . : 

Sacrifices offered by the Akikuyu to pace at the Liban trees 

The sacred places of Engai sanctuaries for criminals and foes 

Sacrifices offered by the Akikuyu to the ancestral spirits : 

Primitive tribes on the ea of Mount Kenya, their country and 
customs : ; 

Vague belief of the Nibes! ina Create called Enea : 

Story of the Origin of Death; the sun, the mole, and the Aen 

Belief in a Supreme Being among the Nilotic or Hamitic tribes of 
East Africa . : : 

The Masai, their inerecier and sltite organization 

Belief of the Masai in a high god Engai or Ngai 

The fervent prayers of the Masai to Engai . 

Belief of the Masai that Engai gave them all the erilee in the world ; 

Belief of the Masai in a Black God and a Red God 

Masai prayers to Engai on various occasions 2 

Story of the Origin of Death: God, man, and the moon 

The primary idea in Engai is the rain 

Resemblance of Engai to Zeus 

The two races of Kavirondo, the Bantu a the Nilotic 

Their belief in a Creator called Nyasaye 

The Kavirondo worship the Sun, the Moon, and the dead 

The Nandi, a Hamitic or Nilotic tribe 

Belief of the Nandi in a Supreme God Asis or Aethhs the Bae 

Belief of the Nandi in two Thunder-gods, a good and a bad 

Prayers of the Nandi to Asista (the Sun) 

A. C. Hollis on the religion of the Nandi . 

*Story of the Origin of Death: 

The Suk and their country 


the Two Moseeneers the bird and the 


the dog and the moon 


PAGE 
241 
241-243 
243-244 
244-245 
245 
246-247 
247-251 
247-248 
251 

251 
251-252 
252-253 
253-254 
254-255 


255-257 
257-258 
258 
259 
259-260 
260-262 
262-263 
263 


263-266 
266 
266-267 


267-268 
268-269 
269-271 
270-271 
271-273 
273-274 
274-276 
276 
277 
277 
278 | 
279 
279-280 
280-281 
281 
281-282 
282-285 
286 
287 
287-288 


CONTENTS 


Belief of the Suk in a Supreme God called Tordrut (Sky) or [lat (Rain) 

Belief of the Alur in a Supreme God Rubanga 

The Lango and their country 

Belief of the Lango in a high god Jok 

Jok consulted oracularly in sacred trees 

Min Jok, the Mother of God, consulted Brecutany by a Hpepheeee 
under a sacred tree 

Annual prayers for rain to the Nicer of God 

Jok, the patron of souls both human and animal 

Oracular ghosts 

Exorcism of a einieccme ghost 

How to lay the ghost of a rhinoceros : 

The inspired prophet called a Jok-man (Man of God) 

Epileptics regarded as inspired 

‘The House of Exorcism 

Oracles delivered by epileptics in fits 

How the deity (Jok) can be outwitted 

J. H. Driberg on the religion of the Lango 

The Dinka, a Nilotic tribe of the White Nile 

The Dinka worship ancestral spirits (7o£) and a high god Dengdit 

Shrines of Dengdit and sacrifices to him : 

Dinka worship of the dead 

Oaths by Dengdit 

Rainmakers among the Dinka iepited by Peetu 

Sacrifices for rain among the Dinka 

The Shilluk, a Nilotic tribe of the White Nile 

Belief of the Shilluk in a high god Juok and a great a Py spirit 
Nyakang ’ , 

The Shilluk conception yest 

Story of the creation of men by Juok 

Juok compared with the Jok of the Lango and Dinka 

Names of African Sky-gods meaning Sun, Sky, or Rain 


eli Be N1e? UP 1 Figg ROMANE 


XV 

PAGE 

288 
289-290 
290-292 
292-293 
293-294 


294-295 
295-296 
296 
296-297 
297-298 
299 
299-300 
300 
300-301 
301 
302 
302-308 
393 
304 
305-306 
306-308 
308 
399 
399-310 
310-311 


311 
312-313 
313-314 

314 
315 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE ARYAN PEOPLES 


OF ANTIQUITY 


Sit, 


Prithivi, the Earth-goddess, wife of Dyaus . 
Hymn to the Earth-goddess in the Atharva-veda 
Mother Earth takes the dead to her bosom 


The Worship of Earth among the Vedic Indians 


§ 2. The Worship of Earth among the anctent Greeks 


The Earth-goddess Gaia or Ge in Greek mythology: 
Homeric Hymn to Mother Earth . . 


xvi THE WORSHIP.OF NATURE 


Antiquity of the worship of Earth in Greece 
Oracle of Earth at Delphi 

Altars and sanctuaries of Earth in Greece 
Mode of worship of Earth in Greece 

Titles of the Earth-goddess 

Larth invoked in oaths 


§ 3. Zhe Worship of Earth among the anctent Romans 


Scanty evidence of the worship of Earth (Tellus or Terra) 
Pregnant sows sacrificed to Earth . 

Earth coupled with the Sky and Jupiter 

Sacrifices offered by the pontiffs to Earth and Tellumo 
Sacrifices to Earth and Ceres jointly at the sowing festival 
The subordinate deities of agriculture i 
Sacrifice of pregnant cows to Earth at the Fordicidia 
Sacrifice of a horse in October 

Pregnant sows the regular victims offered to ear 
Sacrifice of a sow to Earth and Ceres at harvest 

Sacrifices perhaps offered to Earth after an earthquake 
The temple of Earth on the Esquiline 

The worship of Earth in the provinces 

Custom of devoting an enemy’s army to Earth and the dead . 


OH A Paget 


PAGE 
320-321 
321-322 
322-323 
323-324 
324-325 
325-327 


327 
328 
328-329 
329 
330 
331-332 
332 
333 
333-334 
334-335 
335-336 
336-338 
339-340 
340-343 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 


OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. Zhe Worship of Earth among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians 


Enlil, the Babylonian Earth-god : his ae at meee 
Images and titles of Enlil 

Enlil and the tablets of destiny 

Enlil’s wife Ninlil 

Enlil’s place beside Anu and Ea in ihe Ca neHeOn 

Enlil in a treaty between Lagash and Umma 

Prayers and offerings of kings to Enlil at Nippur 

The titles of Enlil afterwards assumed by Marduk at Bavhion 


§ 2. Zhe Worship of Earth among the ancient Egyptians 


The Egyptian Earth-god Seb or Keb 

Seb reckoned the fourth king of Egypt 

The connexion of Seb with the worship of the eal 
Seb identified by the Greeks with Cronus . 


344-347 
347 
347-348 
348 
348 
348-349 
350-352 
352-353 


353-354 

354 
354-355 
355-356 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 


The conception of Mother Earth comparatively late in China 

Older belief in a hierarchy of es Earth-gods . 

Earth-gods of families : 

Earth-gods of parishes, counties, provinces, and Hinodoms 

The two Earth-gods of the Chinese ma 

The altars of the Earth-god 

Treatment of the altar of an Earth-god of a teearten Ade 

A sacred tree essential to the altar of an Earth-god . 

Of old the Karth-god was represented by a whole wood 

The shrine of the Earth-god required a sacred stone as well as a tree 
Why men worshipped the Earth-god 

Relation of the Earth-god to the Harvest-god 

The two great cosmic principles, the yazg and the yz 

The sacred volume Yi Aving 

The Earth-god held responsible for solar elraes ; 
The Earth-god held responsible for exczssive rain and Granene ° 
Recalcitrant Earth-gods cashiered . ; 

The Earth-god presides at death and executions 

The Earth-god and his counterpart the Ancestral Temple 

Persistence of the worship of the Earth-god in China 


O35 HG) hid Ba Od oied 4 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA 


§ 1. 


Worship of Mother Earth (Dhartz Mata) in the Punjab and Bengal . 
Worship of Mother Earth in the Bombay Presidency 

Worship of Mother Earth on Dasara day 

Worship of Mother Earth at sowing, harvest, creiane: and ploughing 


The Worship of Earth among the Hindoos 


§ 2. Zhe Worship of Earth among the Dravidians 


Worship of Mother Earth among the Oraons 

Marriage of the Earth-goddess to the Sun-god 

Worship of Mother Earth at sowing in Hoshangabad 

Worship of Mother Earth among the jungle tribes of Mirzapur 
Human sacrifices offered to the Earth-goddess by the Khonds 
The Earth-goddess Tari Pennu : 

Animals now substituted for human victims 

Motives for offering human sacrifices 


xvii 


PAGE 

357 
357-358 
358-359 
359-360 
360 
360-361 
361-363 
364-365 
365 
366-367 
367 
367-368 
368 
368-369 
369-370 
370-371 
371 
371-372 
372-374 
374-375 


376-377 
377-378 

378 
378-379 


379 
380-381 
382-383 
383-384 
384-395 

385 

386 
386-387 


XVili THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


The human victims (Meriahs) 

Modes of consummating the sacrifice 

Ritual observed over the remains of the victims 
Prayer to the Earth-goddess Tari Pennu 

Flesh of the victims buried in the fields 
Human sacrifices abhorred by a section of the RAoude 
Animals substituted for human victims 


GHA BE RaeX 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 


Earth ranked higher than Sky as a deity in parts of West Africa 
Worship of Earth among the Bobos : 

Religious chief called Chief of the Earth 

Dislike of the Earth-goddess to see bloodshed 

The communal houses of the Bobos 

Sacrifices to Earth at sowing and harvest A 

Earth worshipped by all tribes of the Mossi- Gueines country 

Oaths by the Earth 

Sacrifices to the Earth at clearing land for ealivanor 

Sacrifices to the Earth for rain 

Worship of Earth among the Kassunas- Bars 

Worship of Earth in Yatenga 

The Earth-goddess the great cake of moraty ari ‘natin 

Oaths by the Earth , 

The Chief of the Earth in Arey 

Earth worshipped by tribes in the interior of the Ter Coast 

The seventh day a Sabbath: prayers to the Earth 

Sacrifices to the Earth-goddess among the Kulangos 

Religious functions of the Chief of the Earth among the Gane 
Worship of Earth among the Guros ; 
Religious duties of the Chief of the Earth among fhe Guros . 

Crimes atoned for by sacrifices to the Earth 

Moral influence of belief in an Earth-deity . s 

Worship of the Earth-goddess among the Ashantis . 

Earth-gods worshipped in the Northern Territories of the Gold Cane 
Earth-god propitiated after bloodshed and incest 

Soothsaying by stones said to have fallen from heaven 

Earth-goddess worshipped by the Ewe-speaking Pages of Togo 
Oaths by the Earth : 

Wife’s prayer to the Earth-goddess lor a child : ; 
Offerings to the Earth-goddess for the crops and rain : 
Offerings and prayers to the Earth-goddess for other purposes 
Earth-god Mkissi nssi or Bunssi worshipped by the Bafioti of Loante 
Sanctuaries of the Earth-god in Loango : ; ‘ 


PAGE 
387-388 
389-392 
392-393 

393 
393-394 
393-394 

395 


396 

396 

396 
396-397 
397-398 
398-399 

399 
399-400 
400-401 
401-402 
402-403 
403-405 
403-404 

404 
404-405 
405-411 
405-406 

406 
407-408 
408-411 
408-409 
409-411 

411 
411-412 
412-414 
412-413 
413-414 
414-417 

414 

415 
416-417 

417 
417-423 
419-420 


CONTENTS 


Priest of the Earth-god 

Prayers to the Earth-god for rain 

Penance and purification of sinners at the Baty of the Earth- god . 
Reason for the gravity of sexual crimes 

Offerings of hunters to the Itarth-god 

Earth-god Kitaka worshipped by the Baganda 

Karthquake gods worshipped by the Baganda and other fribes 
Irungu, an Earth-spirit in Kiziba 


CAAGP TOR 21 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA 


Earth personified as Mother by American Indians 

Belief of the Delawares and Iroquois that their ancestors came forth 
from the earth 

Belief of the Ottawas in Earth, the orete priate of All 

Belief of the Winnebagos in Earth the Grandmother 

Prayers of the Winnebagos to the Earth-goddess 

Worship of Earth among the Cheyenne Indians 

Earth personified by the Klamath Indians . 

The Earth Mother worshipped by the Zuitis of News Aetica) 

The Earth-goddess invoked by the Hopi Indians 

Worship of Earth among the Caribs of the Antilles . 

Worship of Mother Earth among the Indians of Peru 

Worship of the Mother of the Gods or the Heart of the Earth among 
the ancient Mexicans 

The goddess personated by a woman nie was Gaia in the divine 
character : 

Ritual use of the skin of the slain woman 

Why human representatives of the gods were slain 


CHAPELER ‘X11 


x1X 

PAGE 

420 

420 
421-422 
422 
422-423 
423 
423-426 
426 


427 


427-428 
428 
429 
429-430 
430-431 
431 
431 
431-432 
432 
432-433 


434-439 
434-436 


436-439 
439-440 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN AMONG THE ARYAN PEOPLES 


OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. 
The worship of the Sun not so widespread as is coupon supposed . 
Adolf Bastian on Sun-worship 


The Worship of the Sun in general 


§ 2. The Worship of the Sun among the Vedic Indians 


The Sun worshipped as Surya and Savitri or Savitar- 
Surya the more concrete of the two solar deities 


_ 441 
442 


443 
443 


THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


XX 


Relation of Surya to Dyaus and the Dawn (Ushas) . 
Hymn to Surya . 

Prayer to the Sun for the cure of cate 

Another hymn to Surya 

Savitri or Savitar, the other Vedic See Foal ; 
Other Vedic Sun-gods, Mitra, Pushan, and Vishnu . 
Ushas, the Dawn, her relation to the Sun and Night 
Hymn to the Dawn 


§ 3. Zhe Worshtp of the Sun among the ancient Persians 


Herodotus on the Persian worship of the Sun 

Xenophon on the Persian worship of the Sun ; 
Horses sacrificed to the Sun by the Persians and a vocmpees 
The Sun invoked in the Zexd- Avesta 

Hymn to the Sun in the Zend- Avesta 

Daily prayer to the Sun prescribed in the Zend- des 


§ 4. Zhe Worship of the Sun among the ancient Greeks 


Greek worship of Helios, the Sun . 

Homeric hymn to the Sun . 

The horses and chariot of the Sun in literature and art 

The Sun invoked as a witness 

The Sun personified as a righteous deity in Greek een 

The golden goblet of the Sun : 

The cows and sheep of the Sun in the Odyssey 

The cows and sheep of the Sun interpreted as the days ahd nights af 
a lunar year . 

Cows and sheep dedicated: to the Suit 3 in Sicily and Laconia 

Flock of sheep sacred to the Sun at Apollonia in Epirus 

Suggested explanation of the sacred cattle of the Sun 

The wife or wives of the Sun : 

The children of the Sun, their Honorable careers . 

Sacrifices to the Sun in Homer - 

Plato on the custom of worshipping the Sun 

Plutarch on the universal worship of the Sun 

Local cults of the Sun in Greece 

Horses sacrificed to the Sun by the Sarat on Mount Tayaetus 

Images of the Sun and Moon at Elis 

Temple and altars of the Sun in Argolis 

Worship of the Sun at Corinth 

Worship of the Sun at Athens : 

Sober (wineless) sacrifices and altars to the sun 

Altars to the Sun in Cos, Cyprus, and Pergamum 

Worship of the Sun in Rhodes 

Myths of Rhodes and the Sun 


PAGE 

444 

445 

446 
447-448 
448-449 
449-452 
452-453 
454-455 


455-456 

457 
457-458 
458-459 
459-460 
460-461 


461 
401-462 
462-463 

463 
463-465 
465-467 
466-468 


468-469 
469 
469-471 
471 
471-472 
472-475 
475 
475 
476 
476-487 
476 
477 
478 
478-479 
479-481 
480-481 
481 
481-487 
481-482 


CONTENTS 


Halieia, the festival of the Sun at Rhodes . 

Chariot and horses annually sacrificed to the Sun ‘by the Rhodiane 
The Sun and the Rose, the badges of Rhodes 

The colossal image of the Sun-god at Rhodes 

Apollo identified with the Sun by philosophers and late Gren writers 
Opinions of modern scholars divided on the question 


§ 5. Zhe Worship of the Sun among the ancient Romans 


Little evidence of Sun-worship in ancient Rome 

Sacrifice to the Sun on the Quirinal on August 9th . 

Worship of the Sun in the family of the Aurelii 

The Sun reckoned by Varro among the farmer’s gods 

Temples of the Sun in Rome 

Obelisks of the Sun brought from Egypt to anne 

Worship of the Sun introduced into the Roman Empire heat the East 

Worship of Elagabalus, identified with the Sun, at Emesa 

Worship of the Syrian Sun-god introduced at Rome by the Eyeeres 
Elagabalus : : 

Aurelian’s attempt to atablich Sun- worship at Rone 

Spread of a solar religion in the Roman Empire 

The Persian god Mithra identified with the Unconquered Sun 

Spread of the worship of Mithra westward . 

The worship of Mithra among the Cilician pirates 

Statius and his scholiast on the worship of Mithra ‘ 

Diffusion of the worship of Mithra by soldiers, merchants, aie slaves 

The worship of Mithra favoured by Commodus and later Emperors 

Popular identification of Mithra with the Sun 

Mithra and the Sun on the monuments 

The scene of the banquet on the monuments 

The mystic hierarchy ; 

The ascension of Mithra to heaven in the Biot of the Sun 

The two torchbearers, Cautes and sama on the monuments 

The triple Mithra : 

The sacrifice of the bull on the Mitheaie monuments 

The slaughter of the primeval ox in Avestan cosmogony 

Mazdean doctrine of the Saviour, the resurrection of the dead, ann 
the Last Judgment 

Mithra as the Saviour, the supreme Serehace of the bull 

The baptism of bull’s blood for the birth to life eternal 

The similarities between Mithraism and Christianity noted by fhe 
Christian Fathers : 

Tertullian on the Soldier’s Crown . 

The Mithraic rites of baptism and the Eechatsl 

The Mithraic rite of the resurrection 

The date of Christ’s nativity shifted to coincide ote the Birthday of 
the Sun * . . 

Julian’s last stand for the Ait of the ean 


ie XM 
PAGE 
483-484 
484 
485 
485-487 
487-459 
489-490 


490 
491 
491 
492-493 
493 
493-494 
494-495 
496 


496-499 
500-502 
502-503 

593 
503-505 
505-506 
506-507 
507-508 
508-509 

509 
510-511 

S11 

512 
512-513 
513-516 
514-515 
516-517 
517-519 


519-521 
521 


521-523 


523-528 
524-525 

525 
525-526 


526-528 
528 


xxil THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


OHARA Toros LL 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN AMONG THE NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 


OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. The IVorship of the Sun among the anctent Babylonians and Assyrians 


The worship of the Sun (Shamash) in Babylonia 
The two great seats of Sun-worship at Larsa and Sippar 
Long popularity of Sun-worship in Babylonia 
Inferiority of the Sun-god to the Moon-god 

Aia or Al, the wife of the Sun-god 

The chariot of the Sun-god 

Representations of the Sun-god ‘in art 

Hlymns to Shamash, the Sun-god . 

Shamash gracious to sufferers 

Shamash the supreme judge and lawgiver 

Moral character of ‘Shamash recognized in Assyria 
Sun-worship prominent under later Assyrian kings . 


The temple of Shamash at Sippar restored by Neneeheanetat II. 


Shamash the god of oracles and patron of diviners 

The oracle of Shamash consulted by kings of Assyria 
History of the temples of Shamash at Larsa and Sippar 
Prayer of Nabonidus to Shamash, the Sun-god 
Offerings to Shamash, the Sun-god ‘ 

Wealth of the temple of Shamash at Sippar 

Ritual of the worship of Shamash at Sippar 

Shamash, the Sun-god, invoked in exorcisms 

Prayer to Shamash before felling a sacred tree 

Prayer to Shamash on behalf of persons bewitched . 
The grove of Shamash and Tammuz at Eridu 

Attempt of Shamash to recall Ishtar from the Land of the Dead 
Dialogue between Shamash and Ishtar 


§ 2. The Worship of the Sun among other anctent Semites 


Worship of the Sun among the ancient Arabs 

Worship of the Sun in Palmyra 

No good evidence of Sun-worship in early Tere 
Worship of the Sun at Jerusalem under King Manasseh 
Jeremiah on the worship of the Sun and Moon 

The chariots and horses of the Sun at Jerusalem 
Worshippers of the Sun at the gate of the temple 


§ 3. Zhe Worship of the Sun among the ancient Eeyptians 


Prevalence of Sun-worship in ancient Egypt 
The Sun-god Ka worshipped especially at Heliopolis 


PAGE 
529 
529 
530 
530 
531 
531 

531-532 
532-533 
533-534 
534-535 
535 
535-536 
536 
537 
537-540 
540-542 
542 
543-545 
545 
545-548 
548-549 
549-550 
550-55! 
551 
551-552 
552 


552-553 
553 
553-554 
554 
555 
555-556 
556 


556-557 
557 


CONTENTS 


Ra identified with Atum (Tum) and Khepera (Khepri), the scarab beetle 

Egyptian Sun-worship perhaps imposed on a basis of totemism 

The Sun-god supposed to cross the sky in a boat 

Nocturnal passage of the Sun through the underworld 

Heliopolis (An, On) the great seat of Sun-worship . 

The spring of the Sun at- Heliopolis . 

Visit of the Ethiopian king Piankhi to the temple 83 the Stn’ 

The temple of the Sun,called Hat Benben, ‘‘ House of the Obelisk ’ : 

Plan of the temples of the Sun : 

The Sun-god Ra represented as a man with the tela ofa Hak 

Horus the Sun-god and Horus the son of Osiris 

Different forms of Horus the Sun-god 

The great Sphinx : 

The Golden Horus 

The Sun-god Tum or Atum of Helopolts 

The Sun-god Ra identified with the local ram-god ee Thebes 

Annual sacrifice of a ram at Thebes ; 

The Sun-god identified with Chnum (Chnuphis), 
Elephantine . 

Hymn to Amon- Ra, the Print: Sun- Boa 

Amon-Ra represented in art as a man with ram’s horns 

Mut, the wife of Amon-Ra ; 

Rise of the priesthood of Amon-Ka at Thebes 

Benefactions of Rameses III. to the temple of Amon-Ra at Thebes 

Usurpation of kingly power by the High Priests of Amon-Ra at Thebes 

The female pope, the wife of Amon-Ra 

The Queen of Egypt the wife of the Sun-god 

The Kings of Egypt thought to be sons of the Sun-god 

Devotion of Amenophis IV. to the worship of the Sun 

His attempt to establish solar monotheism . 

His hostility to the worship of Amon-Ra 

Transference of the capital from Thebes to Tell-el- serene 

Failure of the attempt at religious reformation 

Hymns to the reformed Sun-god Aton 

The Queen’s prayer to the Sun 

The steward’s prayer to the Setting San 

The sculptor’s prayer to the disk of the Sun 

The Sun-god Ra deemed the first king of Egypt 

Myths of the origin of the Sun-god : 

The Sun-god Ra sends forth Hathor to slay menting: but enente “gf 
arrests the slaughter . 

The old Sun-god retires from eit to heeren 

How Horus the Sparrow-hawk, in the likeness of a need disk, 
destroyed the foes of the Sun-god 

The image of the winged disk of the Sun 

Contest of the Sun-god with the great dragon inner : 

Magical ceremony for the destruction of the dragon performed daily . 

Survival of primitive magic in Egypt 


the dream of Thothmes 


the ram-god of 


Xxlll 
PAGE 

558 
558 
559 
560-561 
561-562 
562-563 
563 
564 
564-565 
566 

567 
567-570 
568-569 
569-570 
570 
579-572 
572 


573-574 
574-575 
575-576 
576 
577 
577-578 
578-579 
579 
580-581 
581 
581 
581-584 
582-583 
583-584 
584 
585-588 
588 
589 
589 
590 
590-591 


592-593 
593-594 


594-595 
595 
596-597 
597-598 
, 598 


THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


XX1V 


CHUACT dare exelV, 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA 


§ 1. The Worship of the Sun antong the Hindoos 


The Sun worshipped both by Aryans and aborigines from antiquity 
Sun-worship in India during the Middle Ages i 
Sun-worship favoured by the Moghul emperors 

Temples uf the Sun in India 

Sect of Sun-worshippers 

Stra} Narayan, the Sun-god. 

Sun-worship in the Punjab 

Sun-worship among the Rajputs 

Sun-worship in the Bombay Presidency 

The Sun worshipped daily by Brahmans 

The Sun worshipped by women for the sake of offspring 

The Sun attested in documents and oaths 

The Sun heals diseases of the eyes 

The Sun and the swastika 

Sun-worship in Bengal 

Great annual festival of the Sun 


§ 2. Zhe Worship of the Sun among the non-Aryan peoples of modern 
The Sun worshipped by many aborigines of India, especially the 


Dravidians ° 
Sun-worship among the pleas Benne of pigs 
Sun-worship among the Gonds, sacrifice of pigs 
The Sun-clan of the Bhaina$ mourns at a solar eclipse 
Sun-worship among the Bhunjias, Gadbas, and Kawars. 
The Kols, Mundas, or Hos 
Sing-bonga, head of the Munda pantheon, identified with the Sun 
Sun and Moon worshipped by the Korkus . 
Sun-worship among the Nahals and Savars 
Sun-worship among the Bhuiyas and Kisans 
Sun-worship among the Bhumij and Juangs 
Sun-worship among the Kharias and Korwas 
The Birhors of Chota Nagpur 
Sing-bonga, head of the Birhor pantheon, identified awith the Sun 
Sacrifices and prayers of the Birhors to Sing-bonga . 
Birhor theory of solar and lunar eclipses 
How Sing-bonga created men out of clay ; 
How Sing-bonga punished the first smelters of iron: 
Birhors, Mundas, and Oraons 
Birhor story of the separation of sky and orth 
Sun-worship among the Mal¢s and Mal Paharias 
The Oraons and their country 


story told by 


PAGE 
599-600 
600 
600-601 
601-602 
602 
602-604 
603 
603-606 
604-605 
605-606 
606-607 
608 

608 
608-609 
609-611 
610 


India 


611 
611 
611-612 
612 
613 
613-614 
614-615 
615-616 
616 
616-617 
617 
618-619 
619-621 
621 
621-622 
622 
623 


624-627 

627 
627-628 
628-630 


CONTENTS 


Dharmesh, the Supreme God of the Oraons, identified with the Sun . 
The Santals and their country 

Sing-bonga, the Sun-god, worshipped by the Santats 

Sun-worship absent or little developed among the hill-tribes of iNoAe 
Approach to Sun-worship among the Aos of Assam . 

Traces of Sun-worship among the Nachins and Palaungs of Barina 
Sun-worship among the Todas of the’ Neilgherry Hills 


CHAPTER Sv. 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN 

Shinto, the ancient religion of Japan, a worship of nature 

The Sun-goddess the most eminent of Japanese deities 

Japanese names of the Sun-goddess 

The sacred mirror, the symbol of the Sun-goddess 

” of the Sun-goddess 

Royal princess dedicated to the service of the Sun-goddess 

The Food-goddess, Uka Mochi ; 

Pilgrimages to the shrine of the Sun- Ui at Ise . 

Pilgrimages to worship the Sun on mountain-tops 

Blessings expected of the Sun-goddess 

Japanese deification of the physical Sun 

Mythical origin of the Sun-goddess 

The dead Izanami sought by her husband tenia in he Land af 
the: Dead an, : . : 

The Sun-goddess born from the left eye of Izanagi . : 

Outrage committed by the Impetuous Male Deity on the Sun- ae 

The Sun-goddess retires into a cave, leaving the world in darkness 

How the Sun-goddess was lured from the cave 

Why the Sun and Moon do not shine together 

Sun-worship among the Ainos of Japan 


The ‘ eight-hand crow 


CHAR EE. Rak I 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONESIA 


General absence of Sun-worship in Indonesia 

The White Divinity of the Malays . 

The Sun personified by the Semangs and the Bataks 
Worship of the Sun in Timor and adjoining islands . 
Worship of spirits (#¢¢) in the Indian Archipelago . 
Worship of Lord Sun and Lady Earth in Timor 
Sacrifices of the Timoreese to the two deities 

Some chiefs in Timor called ‘‘ Sons of the Sun” 


XXV 
PAGE 
630-631 
631-632 
632-634 
634 
635-636 
636-637 
637-638 


648 
649 
649-651 
651 
051-653 
653 
654 


655 
655 
655-656 
656 
656-657 
657-659 
657-658 
658 


XXV1 THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 


Sacrifices for fine weather or rain in Timor . : 
Sun-worship absent in Sumba and doubtful in Rotti 

Worship of the Sun and Moon in Solor . 

Worship of the Sun in Leti, Sermata, Babar, and Timorlsate 
Marriage of the Sun and Earth at a great festival 

Woman’s prayer to the Sun-god for a child 

Worship of the Sun-god and Moon-goddess in the Kei ivelireterg 
Offerings to the Sun-god before a battle “ 
Women’s prayer to the Sun-god for the men in battle 

Sun and Moon invoked as witnesses to oaths 

Sun-god invoked to cast out the devils of sickness 

Worship of the Sun and Moon in the Aru and Watubela Tanase 


APPENDIX 


The Story of the Fall of Man: another African version 


PAGE 
658-659 
659-660 

660 
660-663 
661-662 
662-663 
663-666 
663-664 

665 

665 
665-666 
666-667 


669-672 


GATE R tl 
INTRODUCTION 


THE mind of man refuses to acquiesce in the phenomena of The search 
sense. By an instinctive, an irresistible impulse it is driven “*'™°'* 
to seek for something beyond, something which it assumes to 
be more real and abiding than the shifting phantasmagoria 
of this sensible world. This search and this assumption are 
not peculiar to philosophers; they are shared in varying 
degrees by every man and woman born into the world. 
Take, for example, a ploughman. He wakes at cock-crow 
and prepares to begin the familiar round of labour. He 
sees his wife lighting the cottage fire and preparing his 
morning meal, his children gathering expectant round the 
table: he hears the crackling of the fire on the hearth, the 
lowing of cows, the distant bleating of sheep and barking of 
dogs. And with these sights before his eyes and these 
sounds in his ears he has more or less consciously in his 
mind the scene that awaits him in the fields and on the way 
to it. He has a vision, for a vision it is, of the village 
church and churchyard with its solemn yews and its grassy 
mounds sleeping in the morning sunshine; of the turn in the 
road where he catches a glimpse of a winding river and of far 
blue hills ; of the gate opening into the field where he is to 
toil till evening, pacing behind the plough drawn by the 
patient horses up and down the long furrows of upturned 
brown earth. He does not reflect on these things, still less 
does he question their reality. He assumes that they exist 
somewhere outside and independently of him, and that other 
eyes will see the old familiar scenes and that other ears 
VOT. I B 


Z INTRODUCTION CHAP. 


will hear the old familiar sounds when his own are stopped 
for ever in the churchyard mould. 
A supposed In the same way every one of us is perpetually, every 
Feuer hour of the day, implicitly constructing a purely imaginary 
by imag- world behind the immediate sensations of light and colour, 
bevind the Of touch, of sound, and of scent which are all that we truly 
immediate apprehend; and oddly enough it is this visionary world, the 
anes creation of thought, which we dub the real world in contra- 
distinction to the fleeting data of sense. Thus viewed, the 
mind of man may be likened to a wizard who, by the help 
of spirits or the waving of his magic wand, summons up 
scenes of enchantment which, deceived by the very perfection 
of his art, he mistakes for realities. Only by deliberate 
reflection is it possible to perceive how unsubstantial, in the 
last resort, is the seemingly solid structure of what we call 
the material universe.. In the literal acceptation of the 
word, it consists of such stuff as dreams are made of. The 
only difference between the dreams of sleep and the dreams 
which we call our waking life is the greater orderliness 
which distinguishes the latter. Their succession is so 
regular that to a great extent we can predict it with con- 
fidence, and experience daily and hourly confirms the 
prediction. We anticipate, for example, the sights that will 
meet us when we pass into the garden or the neighbouring 
street, and the anticipation is invariably fulfilled. This 
fulfilment, countless times repeated, of our expectation is 
perhaps the principal cause, as certainly it is the best 
justification, of our instinctive belief in the reality of an 
external world. It is this regularity in the succession of 
phenomena which breeds in our mind the conception of a 
cause; in the last analysis cause is simply invariable 
sequence. The observation of such sequences is essential 
to the conduct, nay to the existence, of life, not only in men 
Tits but in animals; with its help we are able to foresee -the 


phitospphig future and to adapt ourselves to it; without it we must 
theories 


of the perish prematurely. 
By a But while mankind in general tacitly assumes that 
reality, the 


material. behind the phenomena of sense there is a real world of a 


eae more substantial and abiding nature, there are men who 
ualistic. | occupy themselves by predilection with the investigation of 


I INTRODUCTION 3 
that assumed external world. They ask, is there really 
such a world hidden behind the veil of sensible phenomena? 
and if so, what are its origin and nature? and what laws, if 
any, does it obey? The men who ask these questions as to 
the ultimate reality of the world are philosophers. in the 
widest sense of the word, and, roughly speaking, their answers 
fall into one of two classes according as they find the 
ultimate reality of the world in matter or in mind. On the 
one view, the ultimate reality is dead, unconscious, inhuman ; 
on the other view, it is living, conscious, and more or less 
analogous to human feeling and intelligence ; according to 
the one, things existed first and mind was developed out of 
them afterwards ; according to the other, mind existed first 
and created, or at all events set in order, the realm of things. 
On the one view, the world is essentially material ; on the 
other, it is essentially spiritual. Broadly speaking, science 
accepts the former view, at least as a working hypothesis ; 
religion unhesitatingly embraces the latter. 

Whichever hypothesis be adopted, the mind, in obedience Need for 
to a fundamental law, seeks to form a conception which will PU" 


cation 

simplify, and if possible unify, the multitudinous and seem- ard _ 

ingly heterogeneous phenomena of nature. Thus, to deal first ae 

with the materialistic hypothesis, ancient Greek philosophers ™eva. 

attempted to reduce the apparent multitude and diversity 2 arate 

things to a single element, whether it was water, or fire, or philosophy 

what not. Others, less ambitious, were content to postulate ata 

the existence of four distinct and irreducible elements, fire, phenomena 
: ar Net . : by reducing 

air, earth, and water. Fora long time modern chemistry jon toone 

continued to multiply the apparently ultimate and irredu- ora few 

cible elements of which the material universe was believed “°"™"'* 

to be composed, till the number of elements had reached 

some eighty-cight. But, as has been observed by an eminent 

philosopher of our time,’ science could not rest content with 

the theory that the universe was built up out of just eighty- 

eight different sorts of things, neither more nor less ; to limit 

the kind of atoms to eighty-eight seemed as arbitrary as to 

limit the number of fundamental religious truths to thirty- 

nine. In both cases the mind naturally craves for either 

more or less; and for the sake of unity and simplicity it 


1 Bertrand Russell, Ze A BC of Atoms (London, 1923), p. 19. 


Modern 
scientific 
simplifi- 
cations 

in physics 
and 
biology. 


The 
apparent 
simplifi- 
cations 

of science 
are 
probably 
illusory, 
concealing 
inner com- 
plexities 
which the 
progress 
of know- 
ledge will 


later reveal. 


CHAP. 


4 INTRODUCTION 


prefers less rather than more. In the case of science that 
craving has in recent years been satisfied by the more or 
less probable reduction of all the old chemical elements to 
the single element of hydrogen, of which the rest would 
appear to be only multiples.’ Similarly in biology the 
theory of evolution reduces the innumerable species of 
plants and animals to unity by deriving them all from a 
single simple type of living organism.” 

Thus alike in regard to the organic and the inorganic 
world the science of to-day has attained to that unity and 
simplicity of conception which the human intellect imperiously 
demands if it is to comprehend in some measure the infinite 
complexity of the universe, or rather of its shadows reflected 
on the illumined screen of the mind. Yet, as that complexity 
is infinite, so the search for the ultimate unity is probably 
endless also. For we may suspect that the finality, which 
seems to crown the vast generalizations of science, is after 
all only illusory, and that the tempting unity and simplicity 
which they offer to the weary mind are not the goal but 
only halting-places in the unending march. The fair-seeming 
fruit of knowledge too often turns out to be apples of Sodom. 
A closer inspection of the apparently simple result may 
reveal within it a fresh and as yet undreamed-of complexity, 
which in its turn may prove to be the starting-point of 
another quest, longer and more arduous than that which had 
yielded to the mind a brief and transient repose. For the 


1 «« Physicists now believe that all 
of the elements are compounded of 
hydrogen atoms, bound together by 
negative electrons. Thus helium is 
made up of fotir hydrogen atoms, yet 
the atomic weight of helium (4) is less 
than four times that of hydrogen (1-008). 
The difference may represent the mass 
of the electrical energy released when 
the transmutation occurred” (G. E. 
Hale, Zhe New Heavens, New York 
and London, 1922, p. 80). At present 
the number of multiples of hydrogen, 
and consequently the number of the 
elements, postulated by physicists 
appears to be ninety-two, but of these 
several remain to be discovered, their 
existence being rendered probable by 
gaps in the series of atomic numbers, 


which begins with hydrogen at one 
and ends with uranium at ninety-two. 
See Sir William Bragg, Concerning the 
Nature of Things (London, 1925), pp. 
36 sg. In this passage Sir W. Bragg 
is speaking of the difference between 
the elements as consisting, not in the 
different multiples of hydrogen, but in 
the different number of electrons which 
they can normally attract or hold as 
satellites. But apparently the number 
of multiples of hydrogen in an element 
is identical with the number of its 
electrons, and both of them with its 
atomic number. 

* For a full and clear statement of 
the evidence, see A. Dendy, Ozdélines 
of Evolutionary Biology, Third Edition 
(London, 1923). 


I INTRODUCTION 5 


thinker there is no permanent place of rest. He must move 
for ever forwards, a pilgrim of the night eternally pressing 
towards the faint and glimmering illumination that eternally 
retreats before him. With Ulysses he may say that— 


“© All experience ts an arch wherethro’ 
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades 
For ever and for ever when I move” 


A gradual process of simplification and unification, like A like 
that which marks the progress of science or the materialistic ane 
interpretation of the world, may be traced in the history tion and 
of religion or the spiritualistic interpretation of the world. SRaeaie 
Savages explain the phenomena of nature and of human arcs 
life by supposing the existence of a multitude of spiritual of religion. 
beings, whether gods or ghosts, who people the sky, the siyaces 
air, the sea, the woods, the springs, the rivers, and by their assume the 
actions bring about all the varied effects which a materialistic ce See 
philosophy refers to the agency of impersonal forces. Such, ° spits. 
for example, was the theory of the Polynesians before, for 
their misfortune, a Kuropean flag ever floated in the Pacific. 

“By their rude mythology, each lovely island was made a 
sort of fairy-land, and the spells of enchantment were thrown 


over its varied scenes. The sentiment of the poet that— 


‘ Millions of spirttual creatures walk the earth, 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep,’ 


was one familiar to their minds; and it is impossible not to 

feel interested in a people who were accustomed to consider 

themselves surrounded by invisible intelligences, and who 

recognized in the rising sun—the mild and silver moon—the 

shooting star—the meteor’s transient flame—the ocean’s roar 

—the tempest’s blast, or the evening breeze—the movements 

of mighty spirits. The mountain’s summit, and the fleecy 

mists that hang upon its brows—the rocky defile—the foam- 

ing cataract—and the lonely dell—were all regarded as the 

abode or resort of these invisible beings.” ° 

The same theory long persisted among peoples at a far A like 

higher level of culture than the rude islanders of the Pacific. aan 

thé ancient 


1 Tennyson, Ulysses. Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), Greeks. 
2 W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i, 331. 


6 INTRODUCTION CHAP. 


‘“« The lively Grecian, tn a land of hills, 
Rivers and fertile plains, and sounding shores,— 
Under a cope of sky more variable, 
Could find commodtous place for every God, 


: t : : The traveller slaked 
f1ts thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked 
The Naiad, Sunbeams upon distant hills 
Gliding apace, with shadows in their train, 

Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed 
Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly. 

The Zephyrs, fanning, as they passed, their wings, 
Lacked not, for love, fair objects whom they wooed 
With gentle whisper.” } 


Primitive When man began seriously to reflect on the nature of 
the theory things, it was almost inevitable that he should explain them 
ae aa on the analogy of what he knew best, that is, by his own 
animatea thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Accordingly he tended to 
ate attribute to everything, not only to animals, but to plants 
principle and inanimate objects, a principle of life like that of which he 
mere of was himself conscious, and which, for want of a better name, 
we are accustomed to call a soul. This primitive philosophy 
is commonly known as animism. It is a childlike interpreta- 
tion of the universe in terms of man. Whether or not it was 
man’s earliest attempt at solving the riddle of the world, we 
cannot say. The history of man on earth is long; the 
evidence of geology -and archaeology appears to be con- 
tinually stretching the life of the speaies farther and farther 
into the past. It may be that the animistic hypothesis is 
only one of many guesses at truth which man has successively 
formed and rejected as unsatisfactory. All we know is 
that it has found favour with many backward races down to 
our own timé. To illustrate it by a concrete example I will 
quote a dialogue between a missionary and his native pupil 
which was published in the present year of grace (1924), 
and which sets in the clearest light the antithesis between the 
savage and the civilized interpretation of physical phenomena. 
The contrast is all the more striking because the materialistic 
hypothesis of phenomena is here advocated by a Christian 
missionary, who would doubtless apply to the universe in 
general that spiritualistic theory which he scouts as absurd 


1 Wordsworth, 7he Excursion, Book IV. ll. 718-721, 871-879. 


I INTRODUCTION 7 


in particular cases. The scene of the dialogue is in British 
New Guinea or Papua, as it is now called. The missionary 
writes as follows: | 

“I knew the natives believed that when a tree was felled 
its soul was dispossessed and had to seek an abiding-place 
in another tree. Its preference was for a tree of the species 
from which it had been expelled, but failing it there were 
alternative species in which it could dwell temporarily. As 
an illustration I was told that when an aravea tree was felled 
its soul entered a /aura, a species of the acacia group, and 
remained there until it could re-establish itself in another 
aravea tree. I saw in this belief an opportunity to question 
the other belief in the presence of a soul in everything that 
exists. Assuming that timber had no soul because when the 
tree was felled from which it came its soul was expelled, 
I took as an object likely to help me to prove my case an 
old table standing on the verandah of our house.” On the 
subject of this table the missionary thereupon engaged in 
an edifying conversation with a native Papuan lad who 
had come to lay the cloth for dinner. As recorded by the 
missionary, the conversation ran thus: 

“J began something in this way. ‘ Your people say that 
everything has its own soul, but they also say that when 
a tree is felled its soul is expelled.’ He replied, ‘That is 
so. ‘ Well, then,’ I asked, ‘how can this table have a soul, 
seeing that when the tree was felled from which its timber 
was sawed, the tree soul fled to another tree habitat?’ Ican 
recall the image of that lad’s face as I write; it beamed with 
amused interest as he put this question, ‘How could it 
be here as a table if it had not a soul inside it to hold it 
together?’ I did not regard that as a poser, and replied, 
‘It is here as a table because skilled men sawed the timber 
from a felled tree, cut it into lengths, shaped them into legs 
and top, nailed and glued the parts together, and it is held 
together by glue and nails, not by a soul, A Papuan does 
not contradict any one whom he regards as a chief. He could 
not even seem to confuse me, or in any way to suggest that 
my ignorance was palpable to him. He stooped down, got 
under the table, drew his finger-tips along the planks, came 
from under the table, stood up, drew quite near to me, held 


Dialogue 
between a 
missionary 
and his 
pupil onthe 
subject of 
animism, 


The soul of 
a table. 


8 INTRODUCTION CHAP. 


the finger-tips so that I could see them plainly and said, 
Those tiny pellets you can see under my finger-nails came 
from the table, others will fall from it like them, and so the 
table will go on wasting until it will crumble away altogether ; 
then, and not till then, its soul will flee away and it will 
no longer be a table. It was my turn, but I had nothing to 
say ; only much to think about, to marvel about. He had 
The soul of not done, however, until he had given me what he considered 


sawdust. the most conclusive evidence of the presence of soul in 
things. Again he stretched his right hand towards me and 
said, ‘Each of those little pellets between my finger-nails 
has its soul; if it had not we could not see it, it could 
not be.’ Such were his views of the omnipresence of 
soul.” 

Tendency Thus while the savage stoutly maintained the spiritualistic 

Ke sat theory of natural phenomena, the missionary as stoutly main- 


theexternal tained the materialistic theory and rejected the spiritualistic 
world of . : “19° - 
spiritual interpretation as childish and absurd. In doing so he 


Rea undoubtedly followed the general trend of civilized thought, 
subdstitut- 


ing un- which for centuries has been gradually emptying the external 


Seas world of all spiritual contents and reducing it to a welter of 
orces for b 


spiriis. unconscious forces. 

The passing “ Unbewusst der Freuden, die ste schenket, 
of the Nie entztickt von threr Flerrlichkett, 
gods. Nie gewahr des Getstes, der ste lenket, 


Sel ger nie durch meine Seligkett; 

Fiikllos selbst fiir thres Kiinstlers Ehre, 
Gleich dem toten Schlag der Pendeluhr, 
Dient ste knechtisch dem Gesetz der Schwere, 
Die entgotterte Natur, 


“ Morgen wieder neu sich zu entbinden, 
Wihlt ste heute sich thr etgenes Grab, 
Und an ewig gleicher Spindel winden 
Sich von selbst die Monde auf und ab, 
Miissig kehrten zu dem Dichterlande 
Heim die Gotter, unniitz einer Welt, 
Die, entwachsen threm Gangelbande, 
Sich durch etgnes Schweben halt.” * 


1 J. H. Holmes, 72 Primitive New equivalent. Mr. lWlolmes_ defines 
Guinea (London, 1924), pp. 154 sg.  wtmunuw as ‘soul, living principle”, 
In quoting the text I have substituted ‘‘ the soul of things”, p. 150. 
for the native word zzz the English 
word ‘fsoul”, which is its nearest 2 Schiller, Die Gétter Griechenlands. 


I LNTRODUCTION 9 


Yes, the gods of Greece are gone, and only poets are left 
to mourn their departure: : 
“Great God! Id rather be 

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

Flave glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 

Hlave stght of Proteus rising from the sea, 

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” 


This process of despiritualizing the universe, if I may The 
be allowed to coin the phrase, has been a very slow and Umted. 
gradual one, lasting for ages. After men had peopled with indwelling 
; ee ee Sagi : ; spirits is 
a multitude of individual spirits every rock and hill, every peaanaily 


tree and flower, every brook and river, every breeze that reduced to 
blew, and every cloud that flecked with silvery white the He 
blue expanse of heaven, they began, in virtue of what we Of deities 
Pky believed to 

may call the economy of thought, to limit the number of the control the 
spiritual beings of whom their imagination at first had been various de- 
so prodigal. Instead of a separate spirit for every individual LEN 
tree, they came to conceive of a god of the woods in general, eae 
a Silvanus or what not; instead of personifying all the winds by poly- 
as gods, each with his distinct character and features, they ‘"°S™ 
imagined a single god of the winds, an Aeolus, for example, 
who kept them shut up in bags and could let them out at 
pleasure to lash the sea into fury. To put it otherwise, the 
innumerable multitude of spirits or demons was generalized 
and reduced to a comparatively small number of deities ; 
animism was replaced by polytheism. The world was 
now believed to be governed by a pantheon of gods and 
woddesses, each with his or her individual character, powers, 
and functions, in virtue of which they were entrusted with 
the control of particular departments of nature or of human 
life. By this generalization the instinctive craving of the 
mind after simplification and unification of its ideas received 
a certain measure of satisfaction; but the satisfaction was 
only partial and temporary. The intelligence could not 
finally acquiesce in the conception of a number of separate 
and more or less independent deities, whose inclinations and 
activities constantly conflicted with each other. 

The same process of abstraction and generalization, 


the same desire for simplification and unification, which 


10 INTRODUCTION CHAP. 


Intime had evolved polytheism out of animism, now educed 
aay monotheism out of polytheism; the many gods, who had 


deposed in long divided among them the sway of the world, were 
favour of ‘ Laud : 
one: poly: deposed in favour of one solitary deity, the maker and 
Sosy Nes: controller of all things. At first this one God was conceived, 
Pa, for example, by the Jews, as regulating the whole course of 
theism. _ nature by a series of arbitrary acts of will and as liable to 
be deflected from his purposes by judicious appeals to his 
passions or his interests. But as time went on, and the 
uniformity of nature and the immutability of natural law 
were gradually recognized and firmly established by every 
advance of science, it was found necessary, or advisable, to 
relieve the deity of his multifarious duties as the immediate 
agent Of every event in the natural world, and to promote 
him, if I may say so, to a higher sphere in the supernatural 
world, as the creator or architect of the universe ; while the 
management of affairs in this sublunary region was com- 
mitted to his subordinate agents, the purely physical forces 
of attraction and repulsion, which modern science, if I 
apprehend it aright, appears to resolve into gravitation and 
electricity, or possibly into electricity alone. Thus the 
spiritualistic theory of the world has. undergone a process of 
simplification and unification analogous to that undergone 
by the materialistic theory: as the materialistic hypothesis 
has reduced the multitudinous forms of matter to one 
substance, hydrogen, so the spiritualistic hypothesis has 
reduced the multitude of spirits to one God. 
Both Both theories aim at ascertaining and defining the 
theories, ultimate reality; the one discovers it in hydrogen and 
material. electricity, the,other in a deity. How far the two supple- 
ae ment or conflict with each other, is a nice question which 
istic, aimat might suitably be discussed by a Gifford lecturer; but an 
Ete adequate discussion of it would require a combination of 
ee philosophic and scientific attainments to which I can lay no 
immediate Claim. All that I desire to point out is that both hypotheses 
dataof aim at explaining and justifying our instinctive belief in the 
‘oe reality of a world beyond the immediate data of sense. 
This is no less true of the materialistic than of the 
spiritualistic hypothesis; for we must constantly bear in 


mind that the atoms and electrons into which modern 


I INTRODUCTION II 


science resolves the material world: are as truly beyond the 
reach of our senses as are gnomes and.fairies, and any other 
spiritual beings. It is true that we may have much better 
reasons for believing in the existence of atoms and electrons 
than of ghosts and hobgohlins; but in themselves atoms 
and electrons, ghosts and hobgoblins are equally hypothetical 
and therefore, in the strict sense of the word, imaginary, 
beings, invented to account for sensible phenomena. The 
supposed effects of both we can perceive, but not the things 
themselves. We can see, for example, the grassy ring 
which is said to be made by the feet of fairies dancing their 
rounds by moonlight on the greensward, but the fairies them- 
selves we cannot see. We can perceive the bright line which 
is said to be the luminous trail left behind by an atom of 
helium shooting athwart a darkened chamber ;' but the atom 
itself escapes our purblind vision as completely as do the fairies. 

Even if, through some as yet undreamed-of refinement of 
our scientific instruments, atoms and electrons should be 
brought within the ken of our senses, can we doubt that 
science would at once proceed to analyse the now perceptible 
atoms and electrons into some minuter and imperceptible 
particles of matter, and so on to infinity? Already science 
assumes that every atom is, as it were, a little sun 
with planets in the form of electrons revolving about it.” 
May it not be that each of these tiny suns comprises 
within itself a still. tinier sun, or rather an incalculable 
number of such suns in the shape of atoms, and that in 
every one of these atoms of an atom a solar system, nay a 
whole starry universe, a miniature copy of ours, with all its 
wealth of vegetable and animal life, is, like our own, in 
process of evolution or decay? Conversely, we may imagine 
that this universe of ours which seems to us so inconceivably 
vast, is no more than an atom vibrating in a vaster universe ; 
and so on to infinity.® 


1 Sir William Bragg, Concerning the 
Nature of Things, pp. 25 sq. 

2 Sir William Bragg, Concerning the 
Nature of Things, p. 29; F. Soddy,; 
Matter and Energy (London, 1920), 
pp. 186 sg. 

3 The thought of the two infinities, 
the infinitely great and the infinitely 


little, which equally evade the utmost 
span of man’s puny intellect, was long 
ago eloquently enforced by Pascal in a 
famous passage. See Pascal, Lensdées 
sur la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne, 
par J. Chevalier (Paris, 1925), i. 43 
sgg. In modern times the same idea 
has been set forth by Ernest Renan in 


The 
present 
analysis of 
matter into 
atoms and 
electrons 1s 
probably 
not final. 


Incapacity 
of the 
human 
mind to 
apprehend 
the 
infinities 
between 
which it is 
poised. 


I2 INTRODUCTION CHAP. 


Thus it is that thought perpetually outstrips sense in the 
infinitely little as in the infinitely great ; however far we ex- 
tend the field of vision, whether to stars of unimaginable 
distance, or to corpuscles of unimaginable minuteness, thought 
still passes beyond them in the endless search after the real, 
the invisible, the eternal. We stand as it were at a point 
between two infinities neither of which we can ever hope to 
reach, yet both of which, by the pressure of some force un- 
known, we are perpetually urged to pursue. Thought is poised 
on a knife-edge between two abysses, into the unfathomable 
depths of which she is for ever peering, till her sight grows 
dim and her ‘brain reels in the: effort. to pierce’ the thick 
gloom that closes the vista on either hand. Yet we under- 
state the mystery that compasses about our little life when 
we speak of it as if it were only twofold, the mystery of the 
infinitely great and the infinitely small in space; for is 
there not also the twofold mystery of time, the mystery of 
the infinite past and the mystery of the infinite future? 
Thus our metaphor of thought poised between two abysses 
needs to be corrected and expanded: not two, but four 
infinities, four gulfs, four bottomless chasms yawn at her 
feet; and down into them some Tempter—or is it some 
bright angel >—-whispering at her ear, perpetually lures her 
to plunge, only, it would seem, to. beat and flutter her 
ineffectual wings in the impenetrable darkness. Yet even 
here, unappalled by the apparently insoluble nature of the 
enigma, the human mind refuses to acquiesce in these 
manifold antitheses, Of late, if I apprehend it aright, 
philosophy or science (for on fundamental questions these 
two sisters, after following the circle of human knowledge in 
opposite directions, tend to meet and kiss at last), philosophy 
or science has recently been at work to simplify the ultimate 
problems by reducing the seemingly irreducible principles of 
space and time to a single reality.’ It is not for me to 


what we may call his confession of pp. 58 sgg. In speaking so glibly of 
philosophic faith written towards the _ infinities, as I have done in the text, 


end of his life. See E. Renan, ‘‘Ex- I should mention that at the present 
amen de Conscience philosophique”, time several scientific gentlemen are 
reutlles aétachées (Paris, 1892), pp. engaged in reconstructing the universe 
407 S9q. on a new and improved pattern of 


1 Compare Bertrand Russell, Ze finitedimensions. Indeed, two of these 
ABC of Relativity (London, 1925), reconstructions are now complete and 


I INTRODUCTION 13 


pronounce an opinion on this bold generalization. I refer 
to it only as perhaps the latest effort of the philosophic 
or scientific mind to unify and harmonize the apparently 
heterogeneous and discordant constituents of the universe. 
The Gifford 
advance the study of natural theology. By natural theology 


lectures were founded to stimulate and TheGifford 
lectures 
intended to 


I understand the conception which man, without the aid of promote 


revelation, has formed to himself of the existence and 
nature of a God or gods. 
exceeding the capacity of any single man to treat of 
adequately in a course of twenty lectures. Accordingly 
your lecturers have naturally and rightly chosen to deal 
with those particular sides or aspects of the subject with 
which their own special studies had made them in some 
measure acquainted. I propose to follow theirexample. As 
you are perhaps aware, my attention has been given almost 
exclusively to the early history, 1 may almost say to the 
embryology, of natural religion; I mean, to the ideas which 
the ancients and the backward races of mankind formed of 
the divine nature and its relations to the world. Accordingly 
in the lectures which I have the honour to deliver in this 
place I purpose to take certain of these ideas as my subject, 
to describe the conceptions themselves and the practical 
consequences which have been deduced from them, whether 
in the shape of ritual or of rules for the guidance of life. 
I am aware that the description of beliefs and customs 
which the enlightened portion of mankind has long agreed 
to dismiss as false and absurd, if not as monstrous, vicious, 
and cruel, is apt to be somewhat tedious and repellent ; 
certainly it lacks the vivid interest which would naturally 
Russell, is that, whereas in Einstein’s 


universe it is only space that is queer, 
in De Sitter’s universe both space and 


ready for delivery. But as the two 
differ fundamentally from each other, 
and the value of both seems dubious, 


the unscientific laity may perhaps be 
pardoned for temporarily acquiescing 
in the old-fashioned infinities and in 
the antiquated notion of a_ radical 
distinction between space and time, 
See Bertrand Russell, 7re ABC of 
Relativity, pp. 164 sgg.: ‘‘ Two some- 
what different finite universes have 
been constructed, one by Einstein, the 
other by De Sitter”, etc. The differ- 
ence between the two, according to Mr. 


time have gone mad, so that only a 
hatter would be in a position to under- 
standthem. Even Einstein, it appears, 
after ejecting absolute space and time 
by the front door, has smuggled them in 
by the back—a melancholy backsliding 
which deals a staggering blow to the 
reconstructed universe and encourages 
the profane to indulge in a chimerical 
hope of the continued existence and 
sanity of both space and time. 


the study 
: of natural 
The theme is a vast one, theology. 


Thesubject 
of the 
present 
course 

is the 
religion of 
ancient 
and back- 
ward races. 


The 
theology to 
be 
discussed 
is that of 
simple folk, 
not that of 
theschools. 


Under 
simple folk 
are 
included 
Savages 
and the 
uneducated 
classes in 
civilized 
countries, 


14 INTRODUCTION CHAP. 


attach to a discussion such as I have indicated of the 
relations between the latest advances of science and the 
latest advances, or retreats, of theology. Still I trust that 
an account even of crude theories and preposterous practices 
may not be wholly destitute of interest and instruction, if 
it enables: us to picture to ourselves something of the 
effort which it has cost our predecessors to grope their way 
through the mists of ignorance and superstition to what 
passes with us of this generation for the light of know- 
ledge and wisdom. They were the pioneers who hewed 
their way through a jungle that might well have seemed 
impenetrable to man: they made the paths smooth for those 
who were to come after: we walk in their footsteps, and 
reap at our ease the harvest which they sowed with labour 
and anguish. The gratitude we owe them for the inestimable 
service which they have rendered us should temper the 
harsh judgments which we are too apt to pass on their errors, 
on what a hasty verdict stigmatizes as their follies and their 
crimes ; and the lesson which we draw from the contempla- 
tion of their long wanderings and manifold aberrations in 
the search for the true and the good should be one rather 
of humility than of pride; it should teach us how weak 
and frail is human nature, and by what a slender thread 
hangs the very existence of our species, like a speck or mote 
suspended in the inconceivable infinities of the universe. 
Accordingly the natural theology of which I propose to 
treat is the theology of simple folk, not the theology of the 
schools, where the doctrine of the divine nature has been 
elaborated and refined by age-long discussion and the suc- 
cessive contributions of generations of subtle thinkers. Who 
then are the simple folk whose theological notions we are 
about to study together? The great bulk of them may be 
described as. savages, by which I mean the races of lower 
culture, so far as their customs and beliefs have not been 
modified by contact with civilization. Under simple folk I 
include also the uneducated classes in civilized countries, 
and especially the peasantry, among whom ancient modes 
of thought and of practice commonly linger long after they 
have disappeared among the more enlightened members of 
the community. The beliefs and customs handed down by 


I INTRODUCTION 15 


tradition from time immemorial among the unlearned are 
commonly comprised under the general term of folk-lore ; 
as the great bulk of them probably originated in a very 
remote antiquity, they furnish valuable evidence as to 
the habits and ideas which may be presumed to have 
prevailed generally in former times, before the advance of 
knowledge, and with it of civilization, gradually ousted 
them from polite society and drove them into holes and 
corners, where they subsist like bats and owls in the dark- 
ness of ignorance and superstition. Accordingly I shall 
sometimes appeal to folk-lore for evidence of ancient modes of 
thought and practice, which, however strange and barbarous 
they may seem to civilized eyes, often shed a flood of light 
on the religion of our primitive forefathers. 

Lastly, I shall draw not a few of my illustrations from The 
the ancient religions of India, of Egypt, of Babylon, of (r/sions of 
Greece, and of Rome. As society in these countries at the nations of 
epochs to which I shall refer was not only civilized, but had Mateo te 
recorded its civilization in copious and elaborate literatures, me tame 
it might be objected that I have no right to include these these 
peoples among the simple folks from whom I profess to ee 
derive the materials of these lectures. It is true no doubt popular 
that in many respects the theology and ritual of ancient ‘Teton 
India and classical antiquity had been modified and refined, 
even in very early days, by the influence of a higher thought 
and a purer morality than can be expected of an ignorant 
and unenlightened multitude. Yet after making every 
allowance for such improvements, gradually and no doubt 
for the most part silently effected by the intellectual and 
moral progress of the leaders, we must still regard the 
national religions of these civilized peoples as essentially 
popular creations, and as bearing on their face the indelible 
imprint of their origin. In other words, they were not, like 
the great historical religions, Buddhism, Christianity, and 
Islam, created each at a blow by the genius of a single 
founder, who was raised far above his fellows by the lofti- 
ness or the energy of his personal character, by the force of 
his moral enthusiasm or of his worldly ambition, and by the 
breadth of his intellectual outlook. Qn the contrary, all the 
evidence points to the conclusion that the national religions 


16 INTRODUCTION » CHAP; 


of ancient India and the Mediterranean basin were in general 
the fruit of a long, gradual, and so to say natural evolution, 
which lasted for many ages and was effected rather by the 
tacit and almost unconscious co-operation of the many than by 
the purposeful intervention of a few outstanding individuals. 
The re- To this general rule perhaps the only exception is the 
Ht religion of ancient Israel, which undoubtedly bears the 
like the clearest marks of having been profoundly and repeatedly 
see ot Modified not only by the deliberate action of able and far- 
classical seeing legislators, but by the moral enthusiasm of the 
aes prophets. Yet even these men, who have exerted on the 
voprint gt history of humanity an influence which it would hardly be 
formation Possible to exaggerate, even they did not create the religion 
saa of their people; the substance of it had no doubt been 
individual handed down, generation after generation, from times beyond 
et the memory of man: all that the great lawgivers and 
prophets. prophets did was to reform the ancient faith by purging it 
of its grosser elements and adapting it in some measure 
to their own high ideals of religion and ethics. But 
these reformations were not complete; indeed they. could 
not be so; .the weaknesses and imperfections of human 
nature alike in reformers and reformed forbade, as they 
will always forbid, the realization of the fairest dreams. 
‘Hence it came about that even after the reformers had 
done their work, the national religion of Israel retained not 
a few crudities that had been bequeathed to it from ruder 
ages, relics of ignorance and barbarism which neither legis- 
lators nor prophets had been able to efface from the book of 
the law and the hearts of the people. Such relics are folk- 
lore, and to some of them I may allow myself to refer in the 
course of these lectures without, I trust, incurring the suspicion 
of trespassing on the forbidden ground of revelation. 
The Such, then, are the sources from which I propose to 
principal draw most of the facts illustrative of that department of 
natural natural theology which I have taken as the subject of my 
pe es lectures. Before closing this general introduction to the 
stages. course, it remains to indicate briefly the principal forms 
which natural religion is commonly found to assume in its 
earlier stages, with which alone we are here concerned. 


As I have already pointed out, the natural religion to 


I INTRODUCTION 17 


which I purpose to confine my attention is that of simple The 

folk, or in other words of primitive. peoples, if I may be rieien oe 

allowed to use the ambiguous word primitive in a relative, simple folk 
not an absolute sense, to denote a level of culture much below (.. ""° 

that which has been reached by educated persons in modern branches, 
wit ys . cra the worship 

civilized society. If then, we survey the natural religion of of nature 

primitive peoples in all parts of the world, we shall probably wai We 

discover that it everywhere assumes one of two forms, which, the dead. 

far from being incompatible with each other, are usually 

found to be embraced simultaneously and with equal con- 

fidence by the worshippers. One of them is the worship of 

nature, the other is the worship of the dead. I,must say a 

few words about each. 

First, in regard to the worship of nature, I mean by that The — 
the worship of natural phenomena conceived as animated, Rye eae 
conscious, and endowed with both the power and the will based on 
to benefit or injure mankind. Conceived as such they are sea 
naturally objects of human awe and fear. Their life and fication of 
consciousness are supposed to be strictly analogous to those atte 
of men; they are thought to be subject to the same passions ™e. 
and emotions, and to possess powers which, while they 
resemble those of man in kind, often far exceed them in 
degree. Thus to the mind of primitive man these natural 
phenomena assume the character of formidable and dangerous 
spirits whose anger it is his wish to avoid, and whose 
favour it is his interest to conciliate. To attain these desirable 
ends he resorts to the same means of conciliation which 
he employs towards human beings on whose goodwill he 
happens to be dependent ; he proffers requests to them, and 
he makes them presents; in other words, he prays and 
sacrifices to them ; in short, he worships them. Thus what 
we may call the worship of nature is based on the personifica- 
tion of natural phenomena. Whether he acts deliberately in 
pursuance of a theory, or, as is more probable, instinctively 
in obedience to an impulse of his nature, primitive man at a 
certain stage, not necessarily the earliest, of his mental 
evolution attributes a personality akin to his own to all, or 
at all events to the most striking, of the natural objects, 
whether animate or inanimate, by which he is surrounded. 

This process of personification appears to be the principal, 


VOL. I C 


The 
worship of 
the dead 
rests on 
the 
assumption 
of their 
existence 
and of 
their 
power to 
influence 
the living 
for good 
or evil. 


Both 
courses of 
lectures to 
be devoted 
to the 
worship of 
nature. 


18 INTRODUCTION CHAP, I 


though it is probably not the only source of the worship of 
nature among simple folk. The worship of nature will form 
the subject of my Gifford lectures. 

The other form of natural religion to which I have 
referred is the worship of the dead. While it differs from the 
worship of nature in itself and in the presuppositions on which 
it rests, it is perhaps equally diffused among men’ and has 
probably exerted at least an equal influence on their thought 
and institutions. The assumptions on which the worship of 
the dead is founded are mainly two: first, that the dead 
retain their consciousness and personality, and second, that 
they can powerfully influence the fortunes of the living for 
good or evil. To put it otherwise, the human soul is 
supposed to survive the death of the body and in its dis- 
embodied state to be capable of benefiting or injuring the 
survivors. Thus a belief in immortality; or at all events in 
the survival of consciousness and personality for an indefinite 
time after death, is the keystone of that propitiation or 
worship of the dead which has played a most important part 
in history and has been fraught with the most momentous 
consequences for good or evil to humanity. 

When I undertook to deliver these lectures, my intention 
was to devote my first course to the worship of nature, and 
my second course to the worship of the dead, thus rounding 
off, in outline at least, the whole sphere of natural religion 
among simple folks. But when I addressed myself to the 
writing of the lectures, I found the materials for the study 
of the worship of nature far too copious to be compressed 
into a course of ten lectures. They overflowed the pre- 
scribed limits and promised to furnish ample materials for 
a second course. Accordingly, instead of attempting to deal 
more or less cursorily with the two forms of natural religion, 
the worship of nature, and the worship of the dead, I have 
decided that it will be better to give both courses to a more 
thorough investigation of the worship of nature alone. In 
my next lecture I will open the subject with some account 
of the worship of the sky in Aryan antiquity. 

' Compare Max Miiller, Z¢roduction departed is perhaps the most widely 


to the Setence of Religion, p. 211: spread form of natural superstition all 
“The worship of the spirits of the over the world.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY AMONG THE ARYAN PEOPLES 
OF ANTIQUITY 


S81. The Worship of the Sky in general 


IN my last lecture I said that the natural religion of simple the 
folk.comprises two main branches, the worship of nature and Aa aR 
the worship of the dead, and I indicated that I propose the worship 
to take the former of these two worships for the theme of %™"""* 
my Gifford lectures. On that subject we enter to-day. 

I pointed out that the worship of nature is based on 

the assumption that natural phenomena, whether animate 
or inanimate, are living personal beings analogous to man 
in their nature, though often far superior to him in power. 
In short, the worship of nature is based on the personification 
of nature. This general thesis I intend to illustrate in 
these lectures by taking some of the principal phcnomena 
of nature and showing how they have been personified and 
deified by various races of men. 

Of all the phenomena of nature the most universal is The 
perhaps the sky. It is the great canopy which covers, or yee a 
appears to cover, alt the races of men in every part of the 
world. Even the earth on which we stand is less universal, 
since to the mariner out of sight of land it disappears and 
is replaced by a great expanse of water. No wonder that 
a phenomenon so universal and so impressive should at an 
early date have inspired men with wonder and awe and 
found a place in their religion. Accordingly I shall begin 
our survey of natural religion with the worship of the 
sky. The subject has recently been treated by Professor 


19 


‘The 
treatise of 
Professor 
Pettazzoni 
on sky- 
gods. 


The hymns 
of the 
Rig Veda. 


Professor 
Macdonell 
on Vedic 
mythology 
AS a 
personi- 
fication of 
natural 
phenomena. 


WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


20 


Pettazzoni of Rome in an elaborate work, in which he 
describes and discusses the belief in sky-gods among 
primitive peoples all over the world.’ To his very learned 
book I must refer those of my hearers who desire to study 
the subject in detail. The scope of these lectures precludes 
me from dealing with more than a small part of the evidence 
accumulated by Professor Pettazzoni. And whereas in this 
volume the Italian scholar limits his survey to the celestial 
beings or sky-gods of primitive or uncivilized races, I 
propose to begin mine with the sky-gods of our Aryan 
forefathers, partly on the ground of the superior antiquity 
of the documents, partly on the ground of the higher interest 
which attaches to a form of religion which was long held 
by our own ancestors, and which has perhaps not been 
without its influence in moulding the religious thought of 
much later ages. 


§ 2. The Worship of the Sky among the Vedic Indians” 


The oldest literary documents in the Aryan or Indo- 
European languages are the Sanscrit hymns of the Rig Veda, 
which were composed in north-western India probably 
between 1500 and 1200 B.c.2 “Vedic mythology”, says. 
Professor Macdonell, “ occupies a very important position 
in the study of the history of religions. Its oldest source 
presents to us an earlier stage in the evolution of beliefs 
based on the personification and worship of natural pheno- 
mena, than any other literary monument of the world. To 
this oldest phase can be traced by uninterrupted develop- 
ment the germs of the religious beliefs of the great majority 


gotl. 


1 R. Pettazzoni, Dio: FKormazione e 
sviluppo del Alonotetsmo nella Storia 
delle Religioniz, vol. 1. L’? Essere celeste 
nelle Credense det Popolt Primitive 
(Roma, 1922). 

* The worship of the great Sky-god 
among all the peoples of the Aryan 
family has been treated elaborately in a 
learned monograph by the late Leopold 
von Schroeder (Arische Religion, I. 
Etnletiung. Der altarische Himmels- 
Leipzig, 1923). But while he 
holds that the Supreme God of the 


Aryan pantheon was a Sky-god, he 
denies (pp. 345 sg.) that this Supreme 
God was a personification of the 
physical sky. 


3 -F, Max Miiller, ‘‘ Lecture on the 
Vedas”, Selected Essays on Language, 
Mythology, and Religion (London, 
1881), ii. 119 (as to the date); W. 
Crooke, in Zhe Jmperial Gazetteer of 
fndia, New Edition, vol. i, (Oxford, 
1909) p. 403 (as to the place of 
composition). 


ieee Ctl) eOPa Ai OROY AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 21 


of the modern Indians, the only branch of the Indo-European 
race in which its original nature worship has not been 
entirely supplanted many centuries ago by a foreign mono- 
theistic faith, The earliest stage of Vedic mythology is 
not so primitive as was at one time supposed, but it is 
sufficiently primitive to enable u8S to see clearly enough 
the process of personification by which natural phenomena 
developed into gods, a process not apparent in other 
literatures. The mythology, no less than the language, is 
still transparent enough in many cases to show the con- 
nexion both of the god and his name with a physical 
basis; nay, in several instances the anthropomorphism is only 
incipient. Thus wsas, the dawn, is also a goddess wearing 
but a thin veil of personification ; and when agnz, fire, 
designates the. god, the personality of the deity is thoroughly 
interpenetrated by the physical element. 

“The foundation on which Vedic mythology rests is Vedic 
still the belief, surviving from a remote antiquity, that all bene 
the objects and phenomena of nature with which man is primitive 
surrounded are animate and divine. Everything that im-“""*™ 
pressed the soul with awe or was regarded as capable of 
exercising a good or evil influence on man, might in the 
Vedic age still become a direct object not only of adoration 
but of prayer. Heaven, earth, mountains, rivers, plants 
might be supplicated as divine powers; the horse, the cow, 
the bird of omen, and other animals might be invoked ; 
even objects fashioned by the nand of man, weapons, the 
war-car, the drum, the plough, as well as ritual implements, 
such as the pressing-stones and the sacrificial post, might 
be adored. | 

“This lower form of worship, however, occupies but a The Vedic 
small space in Vedic religion. The true gods of the Veda eee 
are glorified human beings, inspired with human motives morphic 
and passions, born like men, but immortal. They are almost ,o ee 
without exception the deified representatives of the pheno- natural 
mena or agencies of nature. The degree of anthropomorphism aaa 
to which they have attained, however, varies considerably. 

When the name of the god is the same as that of his natural 
basis, the personification has not advanced beyond the 
rudimentary stage. Such is the case with Dyaus, Heaven, 


General 

evolution 
of deities 
of nature. 


Two Vedic 
sky-gods, 
Dyaus and 
Varuna. 
Dyaus the 
counter- 
part of 
Zeus and 
Jupiter. 


Father 
Heaven 
(dyaus 
pitar) and 
Mother 
Earth 
prithivi 
matar). 


22 


WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cnap. 


Prthivi, Earth, Surya, Sun, Usas, Dawn, whose names 
represent the double character of natural phenomena and 
of the persons presiding over them. Similarly in the case 
of the two great ritual deities, Agni and Soma, the personi- 
fying imagination is held in check by the visible and tangible 
character of the element of fire and the sacrificial draught, 
called by the same names, of which they are the divine 
embodiments. When the name of the deity is different 
from that of the physical substrate, he tends to become 
dissociated from the latter, the anthropomorphism being 
then more developed. Thus the Maruts or Storm-gods are 
farther removed from their origin than Vayu, Wind, though 
the Vedic poets are still conscious of the connexion.” ? 

This lucid exposition of the development of Vedic 
mythology and theology, which I have quoted from Professor 
Macdonell, would probably apply; mutatis mutandzs, to the 
evolution of all religions, which, starting with the personifi- 
cation of natural phenomena, have ended in a pantheon 
of anthropomorphic deities whose original connexion with 
nature has been more or less obscured and forgotten. 

Vedic mythology appears to have included two distinct 
sky-gods, Dyaus and Varuna. -Of the two, the celestial 
nature of Dyaus is the more transparent ; indeed no possible 
doubt can subsist on this point, for in the Rig Veda the 
name dyaus occurs at least five hundred times as a designa- 
tion of the physical sky, without any mythical implication.’ 
The name is derived from a root azv, meaning “bright”, 
“shining”, which appears again in the names of the kindred 
deities Zeus and Jupiter, the sky-gods of ancient Greece 
and Rome. Thus Dyaus signifies the Bright or Shining 
One, an eminently appropriate name for a sky-god. 

Personified as the god of heaven, Dyaus is generally 


1 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology 
(Strassburg, 1897), p. 2 (Grundriss der 
tndo-arischen Philologie und Alter- 
tumskunde, herausgegeben von G. 
Biihler, vol. iii, Part I. A). Compare 
A. Barth, Zhe Religions .of India 
(London, 1882), pp. 7 5g. 


2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
pe 2b Ara. Hopkins, Zhe Religions 
of India (London, 1896), p. 58. 


3 ©. Schrader, Reallextkon der indo- 
germanischen Altertumshkunde (Strass- 
burg, 1901), p..670; H.. Hirt, Die 
indogermanen (Strassburg, 1905 — 
1907), ii. 506; L. von Schroeder, 
Arische Religion, 1. Einlettung. Der 
altarische Himmelsgott (Leipzig, 1923), 
pp. 300 sgg. and 309 sgg. (as to the 
paternity of Dyaus); H. D. Griswold, 
The Religion of the Rigveda (London, 
etc., 1923),°p. 14. 


nt °6DWORSAIP OF THE SKY AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 23 


coupled with Prithivi, Earth, the pair being regarded as the 
universal parents. In their marriage the sky-god Dyaus is 
the divine father, and the earth-goddess Prithivi is the 
divine mother. Thus in a hymn of the Rig Veda the poet 
invokes Father Heaven (dyaus pitar) along with Mother 
Earth (prthivi matar);* and in many other passages of the 
hymns his paternity is either expressly stated or implied by 
association with the Earth Goddess. Indeed, so closely 
were Father Heaven and Mother Earth associated in the 
minds of their worshippers that their names are generally 
linked together in the dual compound dyavaprthivi 

But in some passages of the hymns the Heaven is 
separately styled father, and the Earth mother.’ The two 
were regarded as the parents not only of men, but of the 
gods, as appears from various texts where they are designated 
by the epithet devaputre, “having gods for their children ”.* 
Thus the goddess of Dawn (Ushas) is repeatedly called the 
daughter of Dyaus; and the Fire-god (Agni), the Sun-god 
(Surya), and the Storm-gods (Maruts) are described as his 
sons or children.” In one passage he is spoken of as the 
father of the great god Indra.° But apart from the con- 
ception of paternity there is little to show that in Vedic 
mythology the sky-god Dyaus was invested with personal 
attributes. In a few passages he is spoken of as a bull, and 
in one as a bull that bellows. The point of the comparison 
is probably the generative power of the animal, which is 
implicitly likened to the rain of heaven falling on and 
fertilizing the barren earth. The bellowing of the bull may 
signify the peal of thunder which accompanies heavy rain,’ 
Elsewhere, with reference to his prolific virtue, Dyaus is 


spokeneoimass “rich. in seed?" 


1 Rig Veda, vi. 51. 5 (vol. li. p. 394 
of Griffith’s translation); A. A. Mac- 
donell, Vedic Mythology, p. 22. 

2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
pp. 21, 22; H. D. Griswold, Zhe 
Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 98 sg. 

3 J. Muir, Origenal Sanskrit Texts, 
v. (London, 1884) pp. 22 sg. 

4 J. Muir, of. czt. v. 23. 

5 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 

Hy di Os 
f 6 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 


In one passage he is 


p. 21; Aigveda, iv. 17. 4 (vol, ii. p. 
119, Griffith’s translation). 

7 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
pp. 21, 22. In Rig Veda, v. 58. 6, 
to which Professor Macdonell refers, 
the bellowing of the bull is understood 
by Mr. R..T. H, Griffith to signify 
thunder ; for he translates, ‘‘ Let Dyaus 
the red steer send his thunder down- 
ward ” (vol. ii. p. 269). 

8 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
Den2ts 


Father 
Heaven 
and Mother 
Iearth the 
universal 
parents. 


Dyaus 
as a bull. 


24 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Citar, 


compared to a dark horse decked with pearls, in allusion to 

the star-spangled sky of night.' 
Epithets As personifications of the sky and the earth, Dyaus and 
ase ‘© Prithivi are characterized in the hymns by a profusion of 
yaus and ‘ ‘ aN . 
Prithivi epithets suggestive of the physical phenomena of which they 


(Heaven were the mythical embodiments, such as vastness, breadth, 


and Earth). 
profundity, productiveness, unchangeableness. Yet the two 
were not conceived of merely as nature powers, as simple 
Moral personifications of physical objects; the poets ascribe to 
attributes : iT] i 
Sarna yk ELL leek OU Lesa Olea moral or spiritual order by speaking ue 
them. them as beneficent, wise, and promoters of righteousness. 
Thus in one hymn we read : 

“ At the festivals I worship with offerings, and celebrate the praises 
of, Heaven and Earth, the promoters of righteousness, the great, the wise, 
the energetic, who, having gods for their offspring, thus lavish, with 
the gods, the chotcest blessings, in consequence of our hymn. 

_ “ With my invocations I adore the thought of the beneficent Father, 
and that mighty inherent power of the Mother. The prolific Parents 
have made all creatures, and through their favours have conferred wide 
tzmmortality on thetr offspring.” > 

And again : 
Prayers to “ O Heaven and Earth, with one accord promoting 
me mi with high protection, as of queens, our welfare, 
an artn, 


Far-reaching, universal, holy, guard us. May we, 
car-borne, through ‘songs be victors ever. 
To both of you, O Heaven and Earth, we bring 
our lofty song of pratse, 
Pure ones! to glorify you both. 
Ye sanctify each other's form, by your own proper might ye rule, 
And from of old observe the Law. + 


And again’: 


“ Filled full of fatness, compassing all things that be, 
wide, spacious, dropping meath, beautiful tn thetr form, 
The Heaven and the Earth by Varuna’s decree, unwasting, 
rich in germs, stand parted each from each, 
The everlasting pair, with full streams, rich in milk, 
in thetr pure rule pour fatness for the pious man. 


1 Rig Veda, x. 69. 11 (vol. iv. p. 239 3 Rig Veda, i. 159. 1 sg.3 J. Muir, 
Griffith’s translation); A. A. Mac- Orégznal Sanskrit Texts, v. 21. 
donell, Vedic Mythology, p. 22. 4 Rig Veda, iv. 56. 4-6; The 

F Hymns of the Rigveda, translated with 

2J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, a popular commentary by Ralph T. H. 

v. 22. Griffith (Benares, 1889—1892), ii. 180. 


ime WOLSATP Or THE SHY AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 25 


Ye who are regents of this world, O Earth and Heaven, 
pour into us the gental flow that prospers men. 

Whoso, for righteous life, pours offerings to you, O Feaven 
and Earth, ye hemispheres, that man succeeds... . 

May fleaven and Earth make food swell plenteously for us, 
all-knowing father, mother, wondrous in thetr works, 

Pouring out bounties, may, in union, both the worlds, 
all-beneficial, send us gain, and power, and wealth.” } 


Once more we read: 


* As priest with solemn rites and adorations I worship 

Fleaven and Earth, the high and holy. 

To them, great parents of the gods, have sages 
of ancient time, singing assigned precedence, 

With newest hynins set in the seat of Order 
those the two parents, born before all others. 

Come, Heaven and Earth, with the celestial people, 
hither to us, for strong ts your protection. 

Yea, Heaven and Earth, ye hold in your possession 
full many a treasure for the liberal giver. 

Grant us that wealth which comes in free abundance, 
Preserve us evermore, ye gods, with blessings.” * 


Yet there is a passage in the Rig Veda which proves Heaven 


that by one solitary thinker at least Heaven and Earth *7d Kanth 
created by 


were conceived of, not as existing from all eternity, but as a divine | 

-s _ artificer, 
having themselves been created by the hand of a divine “'"™ - 
artificer. We read: 


““ These Heaven and Earth, bestow prosperity on all, 
sustainers of the region, holy ones and wise, 
Two bowls of noble kind: between these goddesses 
the god, the fulgent Sun, travels by fixed decree, 
Widely-capacious patr, mighty, that never fail, 
the Father and the Mother keep all creatures safe. 
The two world-halves, the spirited, the beautiful, because 
the Lather hath clothed them in goodly forms. . . 
Among the skilful gods most skilled ts he, who made 
the two world-halves which bring prosperity to all, 
Who with great wisdom measured both the regions out, 
and established them with pillars that shall ne'er decay.” ® 


1 Rig Veda, vi. 70. 1-3, 6 (Griffith’s 
translation, vol. li. pp. 423 s¢:). 

2 Rig Veda, vii. 53 (Griffith’s trans- 
lation, vol. iii. p. 68). For another 
translation, see H. D. Griswold, Zhe 
Religion of the Rigveda, p. 98. 

3 Rig Veda, i. 160 (Griffith’s trans- 
lation, vol. i. p. 273), For another 


translation, see H. D. Griswold, 7%e 
Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 98 sg. 
Compare J. Muir, Orzgénal Sanskrit 
Texts, v. 22. In this hymn it will be 
observed that Ileaven and Earth are 
spoken of as two goddesses. The 
explanation is that in about twenty 
passages of the hymns dyazs (heaven), 


Myth of the 
separation 
of Heaven 
and Earth. 


The 
personi- 
fication of 
Dyaus and 
Prithivi 
vague and 
shadowy. 


26 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuap. 


It is a common belief of primitive peoples that sky and 
earth were originally joined together, the sky either lying 
flat on the earth or being raised so little above it that there 
was not room between them for people to walk upright. 
Where such beliefs prevail, the present elevation of the sky 
above the earth is often ascribed to the might of some god or 
hero, who gave the firmament such a shove that it shot up 
and has remained up above ever since. In some parts of Poly- 
nesia this exploit is attributed to the famous hero Maui; in 
Micronesia it is said to have been the work of various 
deities. A similar story of the original conjunction and 
subsequent separation of sky and earth meets us in Vedic 
mythology. We read that “these two worlds (heaven and 
earth) were once joined. Subsequently they separated. 
After their separation there fell neither rain, nor was there 
sunshine. The five classes of beings (gods, men, etc.) then 
did not keep peace with one another. Thereupon the gods 
brought about a reconciliation of both these worlds. Both 
contracted with one another a marriage according to the 
rites observed by the gods.” ? 

But in this passage the union, separation, and final 
marriage of the two great natural powers savours almost 
as much of a cosmogonical speculation as of a mythical 
personification of .the two powers in question. And of 
Dyaus and Prithivi generally we may say that their 
personification is still vague and shadowy ; they hover, so 
to say, on the border betweeen the physical and the divine. 
They do not appear to have been the object of a highly 
developed worship; on the whole, we may say that they 
occupied ‘a subordinate place in Vedic religion. Certainly 
there is nothing to show that Dyaus, the Indian Sky-god, 
was the Supreme Deity of the Vedic pantheon, as Zeus 


curiously enough, is feminine even 
when heaven is personified. See A. A. 
Macdonell, Veadte Mythology, p. 22. 
Moreover, instead of ‘‘father and 
mother”, Heaven and Earth are often 
spoken of as ‘‘ the two mothers”. See 
E. W. Hopkins, Zhe Religions of 
India, p. 59. 

1E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, 
i. 322 syg.; Andrew Lang, Custom 
and Myth (London, 1884), pp. 44 599. 


As to the Polynesian legend, see Sir 
George Grey, folynesian Mythology 
(London, 1855), pp. tsgg.; The Belief 
in Immortality and the Worship of the 
Dead, ii. 226, 2753; as to the Micro- 
nesian legend, see Zhe Belief in [m- 
mortality and the Worship of the Dead, 
ili. 58, 59. 59. 

2 Attareya Brahmana, iv. 27, quoted 
and translated by J. Muir, Original 
Sanskrit Texts, v. 23. 


i WORSAIP OF THE SKY AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 27 


and Jupiter, the Greek and Roman Sky-gods, were unques- 
tionably the Supreme Deities of their respective pantheons.' 
Yet his identity in name and nature with these two great 
gods seems to prove beyond question that the Sky-god, 
if not the principal, was certainly one of the oldest of 
the Aryan deities, and that his worship dates from 
the time when the forefathers of the Aryan or Indo- 
European peoples still lived together before the dispersion 
which scattered their descendants from the Ganges to 
Ireland. 

The other great Sky-god of the Vedic pantheon is The other 
Varuna, whose name appears to be etymologically identical Yel 8% 


; i god is 
with the Greek ouranos (otpavos), which was the name both Varuna, the 


of the physical sky and of the old mythical sky or Sky-god, “M“0'™ 
Uranus.” The name appears to be derived from a root Greek 
; », Uranus. 


var, “to cover”, so that Varuna means “the Encompasser ”, 
with reference to the overarching vault of heaven.* But in 
Varuna the old physical basis of the god is far less trans- 
parent than in Dyaus; the process of personification has 
been carried much farther, and in particular the moral 
character of the deity has been more fully developed. Side 
by side with Indra he is the greatest of the gods of the 
Rig Veda.® He is described as king of all, both gods and He is the 


f king of 
1 Compare H. Oldenberg, Dze A. Barth, 7he Religions of /ndia, p. Gay 
Religion des Veda, p. 240; E. W. 


16; E. W. Hopkins, Zhe Religzons His great 
Hopkins, 7he Religions of India, pp. of India, pp. 63, 66, 70; A. A. powers. 
58 sg.; A. A. Macdonell, Vedte  Macdonell, Vedic Alythology, pp. 27 
Mythology, p. 22; HU. D. Griswold, 


sq.; ta., ‘*Vedic Mythology”, in 
The Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 100sg. J. Hastings’s Ancyclopaedia of Religion 
2 Compare L, von Schroeder, Arische 


and Ethics, xii. (Edinburgh, 1921) 
Religion, 1. Einlettung, Deraltarische pp. 603; L. von Schroeder, Arische 
flimmelsgott, pp. 309 599. 


Religion, 1. Einlettung, Der altarische 
3 The identity of Varuna with 


ovpavds (Uranus) in name and nature 
appears to be generally, though not 
universally, accepted by scholars. See 
F. Max Miiller, Lectures on the Sctence 
of Language ®, ii. 454, 4753 7a., /ntro- 
duction to the Science of Religion 
(London, 1873), p. 231; 7a@., ‘*Com- 
parative Mythology”, Selected Essays 
on Language, Mythology, and Religion 
(London, 1881), i. 370 sg.; J. Darm- 
steter, Ormazd et Ahriman (Paris, 
1877), p. 533; A. Kaegi, Der Rigveda ® 
(Leipzig, 1881), pp. 85, 200 sg.; J. 
Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 763 


Himmelsgott, p. 322; H. D. Gris- 
wold, The Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 
112 sg. Professor Meillet proposes 
to derive the name Varuna from the 
Sanscrit wrata, ‘‘ordinance”. See 
J. H. Moulton, Zarly Zoroastrianism 
(London, 1913), p. 64. 


4 A, Kaegi, Der Rigveda*, p. 200 ; 
A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Alythology, 
p. 28; L. von Schroeder, of. ct. p. 
322; H. D. Griswold, Zhe Religion 
of the Rigveda, pp. 112 sg. 

5 A, A. Macdonell, Vedic AZythology, 


pp. 22 sg. 


28 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 
men, of the whole world, of all that exists.’ He is the 
upholder both of the physical and of the moral order. He is 


the great lord of the laws of' nature. He established heaven 
and earth: he supports them: he dwells in all the worlds: 
he set the sun in the sky: he opened a broad path for him: 
he made him to shine like a golden swing in heaven: the 
wind which whistles through the air is his breath: by his 
ordinances the moon moves on in splendour through the 
night, and the stars are fixed in their places aloft: he 
measured the earth with the sun as with a measuring-rod : 
he caused the rivers to flow, and in obedience to his com- 
mand they stream for ever: he clothes himself in the waters, 
he moves in their midst, his golden house is there, his house 
with a thousand doors: men pray to him for rain, and he 
bestows it on them: he tilts his casks, and they pour water 
on heaven and earth and air, they moisten the parched 
ground, they bedew the pastures with oil and the regions of 
the world with honey: he causes the mountains to be veiled 
in clouds: the gods themselves obey his ordinances : neither 
the birds as they fly nor the rivers as they flow can reach 
the limit of his dominion, his might, and his wrath: man 
cannot escape from him, though. he should flee far beyond 
the sky: he knows all things—the flight of the birds in the 
sky, the path of ships in the sea, the course of the far- 
travelling wind: he beholds all the secret things that have 
been or shall be done: he witnesseth men’s truth and false- 
hood: the very winkings of their eyes are all numbered by 
him, and whatever they do, or think, or devise, he knows 
it all.” 


1 A. A. Maedonell, Vedic Mythology, 
Dor 24: 

* A. A. Macdonell, Vedic ALythology, 
pp. 24-26, with the references to the 
kig Veda and the Atharva Veda. 
To the passages cited by Professor 
Macdonell I have added, ‘* he measured 
the earth with the sun as with a measur- 
ing rod” (Azg Veda, v. 85. 5). As to 
the character and power of Varuna, 
see further A. Kaegi, Der Rigveda ?, 
pp. 85 sgg.3 J. Muir, Orzg¢nal Sanskrit 
Jexts, v. §8 sgqg.; A. Barth, Zhe Re- 
ligions of India, pp. 16 sgg.; E. W. 
Hopkins, Zhe Religions of India, pp. 


61 sgg.3; H. Oldenberg, Dze Recigion 
des Veda, pp.185 s¢g.; L.von Schroeder, 
Arische Religion, 1. Einleitung. Der 
altarische Himmelsgott, pp. 321 s99.3 
H. D. Griswold, Zhe Religion of the 
Rigveda, pp. 11-149. Oldenberg 
argued that Varuna was originally a 
moon-god, borrowed from the Semites 
or Accadians. But his views on this 
point appear not to have met with 
acceptance. See E. W. Hopkins, Ze 
Religions of India, p. §71 note; A. A. 
Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 28; 
F. Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments 
jigurés relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra 


ie MOnRSAIP OR THE SKY AMONG VEDIC INDIANS,“29 


As a moral governor of the world Varuna stands far 
above all the other Vedic gods. His wrath is roused by 
sin, the breach of his ordinances, and he punishes it severely: 
he binds sinners with threefold and sevenfold fetters, which 
ensnare the liar but pass by him who speaks the truth. But 
he is gracious to the penitent: he unties the bonds of sin 
and sets the sinner free: he pardons men their sins and the 
sins of their fathers: he spares the suppliant who has trans- 
gressed his laws, and he is gracious to such as have broken 
them through thoughtlessness. There is indeed no hymn to 
Varuna in which the suppliant does not pray for forgiveness 
of guilt, just as in hymns to other gods he prays for worldly 
prosperity. Varuna is on a footing of friendship with his 
worshipper, who communes with him in his heavenly mansion 
and sometimes beholds him with the eye of faith.' 

One hymn may serve as a specimen of the prayers which 
his worshippers addressed to Varuna: 


“ Let me not yet, king Varuna, enter into the house of clay: 
flave mercy, spare me, mighty lord / 
When, thunderer ! I move along tremulous like a wind-blown skin, 
flave mercy, spare me, mighty lord / 
O bright and powerful god, through want of strength I erred and went 
astray: 
Flave mercy, spare me, mighty lord / 
Thirst found thy worshipper though he stood in the midst of water- 
Jioods ; 
Flave mercy, spare me, mighty lord / 
O Varuna, whatever the offence may be which we as men commit 
against the heavenly host, 
When through our want of thought we violate thy laws, puntsh us not, 
O god, for that iniquity,” * 


A god so high and holy is clearly far from being a 
simple personification of the blue vault of heaven. In 


(Bruxelles, 1896-1899), i. 224 note*; wold, Zhe Religion of the Rigveda, 
C. P. Tiele, Geschichte der Religion im pp. 121 sgq. 
Altertum (Gotha, 1896-1903), ii. 70; 2 Rig Veda, vii. 89 (Griffith’s trans- 
L. von Schroeder, Arische Religion, lation, vol. iii, p. 110). The hymn has 
I. Zinlettung. Der altarische Himmels- also been translated by F. Max Miiller 
gott, pp. 430 sgg.; H. D. Griswold, (‘* Lecture on the Vedas,” Selected 
The Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 147- Lssays on Language, Mythology, and 
149. Religion, ii. 148 sg.), by J. Muir 
1 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, (Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 67), and 
pp. 26 sg. On the ethical character by H. D. Griswold (7ke Religion of 
of Varuna, see especially H. D. Gris- ¢he Rigveda, p. 123). 


Ahe moral 
character of 
Varuna. 


Prayer to 
Varuna. 


The divine 
majesty of 
Varuna. 


The 
relation of 
Varuna to 
Mitra. 


Great 
antiquity 
of the 
worship of 
Varuna. 


30 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES | char. 


regard to no other deity of the Vedic pantheon is the sense 
of the divine majesty and of the absolute dependence of the 
creature expressed with the same force and dignity: we 
must turn to Job and the Psalms to find similar accents of 
heartfelt adoration and humble supplication.’ 

Yet his old physical nature as a Sky-god pure and 
simple may be said to peep out here and there under the 
gorgeous drapery which religious poetry has thrown over his 
august figure. Thus he is very often coupled with another god 
Mitra, and some good scholars are of opinion that in origin 
Mitra was a sun-god like his Iranian counterpart and name- 
sake Mithra.?, Nothing could well be more natural than to 
associate a sky-god with a sun-god. The Vedic poets speak 
of the sun as the eye both of Varuna and Mitra;* and if 
Varuna was indeed originally the sky, the comparison of the 
sun to his eye is apt and appropriate ; though on the other 
hand, if Mitra was originally the sun, the sun could hardly 
be spoken of as his eye until his original conception had 
been obscured and absorbed in that of the Sky-god, with 
whom he was constantly associated. The abode of the 
two gods is described as golden and situated in heaven.” In 
a passage of the Satapatha Brahmana the god Varuna alone, 
conceived as the lord of the Universe, is stationed in the 
midst of heaven, from which he surveys the places of 
punishment situated all around him.°® 

The Sky-god Varuna appears to date from the time 
when the ancestors of the Iranians and of the Aryan Indians 
still lived together and worshipped the same deities ; for the 


1 A. Barth, Zhe Religions of India, 
p. 18. In his excellent work on the 
Rig Veda (second edition, pp. 85 s59¢.) 
the German scholar A. Kaegi illustrates 
the references of the Vedic poets to 
Varuna by apt quotations from Job, the 
Psalms, and the prophetic books of the 
Old Testament. 

2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
PPo 7 22ST 227 SO SG iseuar We LO 
kins, Zhe Religions of India, pp. 57 sq. 
As to the equivalence of Mitra and 
Mithra, and the solar nature of both, 
compare H. Oldenberg, Dze Religzon 
des Veda, pp. 189 sgg. However, the 
original solar character both of Mitra 


and Mithra is denied by other scholars, 
whose opinion carries weight. See 
L. von Schroeder, Avische Religion, 
I. Ainlettung. Der altarische Himmels- 
gott, pp. 361 sy., 381 sgg., 431; and 
below, pp. 461, 503, 509 sg. 

3 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
Dz: 

4 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, - 
ps 2% 

5 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
p- 23, referring to Azg Veda, i. 136. 
Sete OF ua. 

6 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
p. 23, referring to Satapatha Brahmana, 
Riss Ose te 


m1 WORSHIP OF THE SKY AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 31 


great Iranian deity Ahura Mazda, who figures in the Avesza, 
agrees with Varuna in character, though not in name.! 
Further, the similarity in name and nature between Varuna 
and the old Greek sky-god Uranus suggests that the 
worship of this personification of the firmament goes back 
to a still remoter period, when the Aryan ancestors of 
Greeks, Indians, and Iranians still formed one people, dwell- 
ing in the same land and united in the worship of the same 
divinities. 

Thus it appears that the Indians of the Vedic age Of the two 
and their Aryan forefathers worshipped two separate per- ae 
sonifications of the physical sky, which they distinguished is perhaps 
by different names. In Vedic mythology one of these pieenae 
personifications is Dyaus, and the other is Varuna. Of the 
two, if we may hazard a conjecture on so obscure a question, 
Dyaus is perhaps the older. For his name as the appella- 
tion of a deity is much more widely diffused than that of 
Varuna, since it meets us in the Old High German Z7o, the 
Anglo-Saxon 77zw, and the Eddic 7yr, as well as in the 
Greek Zeus and the Latin /upzter2 Moreover, the old 
physical basis of the deity remains much clearer in Dyaus 
than in Varuna, in whom it has been largely overgrown 
and concealed by a rich vein of religious and moral re- 
flection; and this greater simplicity and transparency of 
Dyaus as compared to Varuna may be thought to plead in 
favour of his higher antiquity. The association of the 
Earth-goddess Prithivi with Dyaus but not with Varuna 
points in the same direction ; for the conception of Sky and 
Earth as a pair of wedded deities appears to be exceedingly 
ancient, if we may judge by its frequent occurrence among 
savages, whose mental condition on the whole represents 
an earlier stage in the evolution of thought than that which 


1 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
pp. 8, 28; J. Muir, Original Sanskrit 
Texts, v. 72; J. Darmsteter, Ormazd 
et Ahriman (Paris, 1877), pp. 44-57; 
L. von Schroeder, Arische Religion, 
I. Linleitung. Der altarische Himmels- 


solt, pp. 334 577. 


2 F, Max Miiller, Lectures on the 
Science of Language®, ii. 468. The 
old German form of the name is now 


given as 77vus or Tus, or again as 
Tiwaz or 7iwz. In any case the old 
German and Norse god who corre- 
sponds to Dyaus, Zeus, and Jupiter 
was not a Sky-god but a War-god. 
See R. M. Meyer, Algermanische 
Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1910), 
pp. 178 sg.; L. von Schroeder, dArésche 
Religion, 1. Etmettung. Der altarische 
Himmelsgott, pp. 301, 485, 490 5¢., 
492. 


Herodotus 
on the 
religion of 
the ancient 
Persians, 


Some 
scholars 
think 

that the 
Supreme 
God of the 
Iranians, 
Ahura 
Mazda, was 
originally a 
personi- 
fication of 
the sky. 


32 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuap. 


meets us in the most ancient literature of the Aryan race. 
To some of these savage ideas concerning the marriage of 
Sky and Earth I shall presently invite your attention. 


§ 3. The Worship of the Sky among the ancient Iranians 


That a people of the Iranian’stock adored a great Sky- 
god we know from the testimony of Herodotus, who tells us 
that the ancient Persians deemed it unlawful to set up images 
and temples and altars, and that they reckoned men fools 
who did so; for they did not conceive the gods to be of like 
nature with men, as the Greeks conceived them. Hence, 
instead of employing the work of men’s hands as the symbols 
and instruments of worship, it was the wont of the Persians 
to ascend to the tops of the mountains and there offer 
sacrifices to Zeus, giving the name of Zeus to the whole 
circle of the sky.’ It is highly probable that in this passage 
Herodotus has recorded, with a slight variation, the native 
name of the ancient Aryan Sky-god in the Persian language; 
for the Old Persian form of the name would be Diyaus, and 
this, as was well observed by the late Professor J. H. 
Moulton, would inevitably suggest its Greek cognate and 
synonym Zeus to the ear of a Greek traveller.” Elsewhere 
Herodotus informs us that the Scythians worshipped Zeus 
and the Earth, whom they regarded as the wife of Zeus.® 
It is highly probable, that by Zeus the historian here 
designates a Scythian sky-god ;* and if the Scythians were 
Iranians, as there is some reason to suppose, it will follow 
that the Vedic myth of the marriage of Heaven and Earth 
had its counterpart in Iranian mythology.? 

Some scholars of high authority have held that Ahura 
Mazda himself, the Supreme God of the Iranians, whose 


3 Herodotus, iv. 59. 
4°So J. C. F. Baehr in his com- 


1 Herodotus, a4. 1314) Compare 
Strabo, xv. 3. 13, p. 732, who seems 


to be simply copying Herodotus. 

2 J. H. Moulton, Zarly Zoroastrian- 
ism (London, 1913), pp. 391 sg.3; com- 
pare: zd@., ‘‘Iranians”’, in J. Hastings’s 
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 
vii. 418 sg.; L. von Schroeder, Arzsche 
Religion, 1. Einlettung. Der altarische 
Himmelsgott, pp. 337 sgg. (who doubts 
whether Herodotus here meant to give 
the Persian name of the god). 


mentary on Herodotus, iv. 59. 
5 J. H. Moulton, ‘Iranians ”, in 
J. Hastings’s Zxcyclopaedia of Religion 


and Ethics, vii. 419. As to the 
evidence for the Iranian origin of 
the Scythians, see E. H. Minns, 


. *Scythians”’, in J. Hastings’s Zvcy'clo- 


paediaof Religionand Ethics, xi. 278 59.3 
id., in Zhe Cambridge Ancient History, 
lil, 192 sgg. 


man WORSATIP OFF SKY AMONG ANCIENT: [TRANIANS 33 


& 


name signifies “ Wise Lord”, was originally a personification 
of the sky and therefore substantially identical with the 
Vedic Dyaus and the Greek Zeus, both of whom were sky 
gods and the heads of their respective pantheons. The 
great antiquity of Ahura Mazda is attested by the oldest 
cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenian dynasty, in 
which, under the name of Auramazda, he is invoked as the 
Creator of heaven, earth, and mankind, as the protector 
of the kings and the source of their dominion. Thus Darius 
acknowledges that it was Auramazda who made him king 
and helped him, along with the rest of the gods.’ In 
support of the view that Ahura Mazda was originally a 
personification of the sky, the eminent Iranian scholar, 
James Darmesteter, quoted the following passage of the 
Zend-Avesta : 

“ Ahura Mazda spake unto Spitama Zarathushtra, saying: 
‘Do thou proclaim, O pure Zarathushtra! the vigour and 
strength, the glory, the help and the joy that are in the 
Fravashis? of the faithful, the awful and overpowering 
Fravashis ; do thou tell how they come to help me, the 
awful Fravashis of the faithful. Through their brightness 
and glory, O Zarathushtra, I maintain that sky, there above, 


1 James Darmesteter, Ormazd ef 
Ahriman (Paris, 1877), p. 25; F. 
Cumont, s.v. ‘‘Oromasdes”, in W. 
H. Roscher’s Ausfihrliches Lexikon 
der griechischen und rimischen Alytho- 
logie, iii. 1051. As to the interpreta- 


the dead. We are told that they 
corresponded to the Latin gessus as 
well as to the Latin mamnes. Some 
would limit them to the spirits of the 
good. In any case they appear to 
have been regarded as purely beneficent 


tion of Ahura Mazda as -‘‘ the Wise 
Lord”, see Fr. Spiegel, Ardnzsche 
Alterthumskunde (Leipzig, 1871-1878), 
ii. 21, note4; A. V. Williams Jackson, 
‘‘Die iranische Religion,” in W. 
Geiger und F. Kuhn, Gruadriss der 
tvanische Philologie, ii. (Strassburg, 
1896-1904), p. 632; J. H. Moulton, 
Early Zoroastrianism (London, 1913), 
p. 447; J. Darmesteter, Ormazd et 
Arhiman, pp. 28 sg.; L. von Schroeder, 
Arische Religion, \. Einlettung. Der 
altartsche Himmelsgott, p. 282. 

2 The Fravashis appear to have 
been originally worshipful ancestral 
spirits, but in later times. the conception 
was extended so as to cover the spirits 
or doubles of the living as well as of 


VOL. I 


beings, a sort of guardian angels, and 
were accordingly -worshipped with 
sacrifice, They were especially associ- 
ated with the stars; but during the 
intercalary days at the end of every 
year they were supposed to descend to 
earth and tarry there for ten nights 
during which they received offerings of 
food and clothes from their worshippers. 
See Fr. Spiegel, Eyra@nische Alter- 
thumskunde, ii. 91-98; A. V. Williams 
Jackson, ‘‘ Die iranische Religion”, 
in W. Geiger und E. Kuhn, Grazdriss 
der trantschen Philologie, ii. 643; 
J. H. Moulton, s.v, ‘ Fravashi”, in 
J. Hastings’s Encyclopedia of Religion 
and Ethics, vi. 116-118; ta,, Early 
Zoroastrianism, pp. 254 syq. 


D 


But this 
view 1S 
rejected by 
other 
scholars. 


34 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES : cnar. 


shining and seen afar, and encompassing this earth all 
around. It looks like a palace that stands built of a 
heavenly substance, firmly established, with ends that lie 
afar, shining in its body of ruby over the three-thirds of the 
earth; it is like a garment inlaid with stars, made of a 
heavenly substance, that Mazda puts on.’”! 

However, it may be observed that in this passage the 
sky is said to be maintained by Ahura Mazda; it is not 
identified with him, though it is compared to a star-spangled 
garment which the deity puts on. But again in another 
passage of the Zend-Avesta the sun is called the eye of 
Ahura Mazda, and Ahura Mazda himself is described as 
“the radiant, the glorious”. On this Darmesteter remarks 
that “a radiant and glorious god who has the sun for his 
eye can be nothing but the Sky-god or the Sun-god, whether 
he be Zeus, or Varuna, or Indra, or Odin”. Again, in 
support of the original identity of Ahura Mazda with the fs 
the French scholar notes that the Fire (Azar) is called his 
son, and that the Waters (4) are called his wives. Both 
chese mythical relationships, he thinks, are naturally ex- 
plicable on the view that the Sky-god weds the Rain-clouds 
and begets on them the lightning.* On the whole, Dar- 
mesteter concludes that Ahura Mazda was originally a god 
of the: sky, especially of the bright sky, and he thinks 
that this view harmonizes with, and is supported by, the 
testimony of Herodotus cited above.” To this opinion the 
eminent historian of Mithraicism, Franz Cumont, has briefly 
signified his assent.° Professor Williams Jackson also sees 
in Ahura Mazda certain “mythical traits which point to a 
connexion between him and the old idea of a Sky-god”’.’ 

On the other hand the opinion that Ahura Mazda 
was originally a sky-god has been decidedly rejected by 


1 The Zend- Avesta, translated by man, pp. 33 599. 


James Darmesteter, Part IT. (Oxford, o J. Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahrt- 


1883) pp. 180 sg. (Sacred Books of man, pp. 35-37 

the East, vol. xxiil.). 6 F. Cumont, s.v. *°Osomasdes ’, 
2 The Zend-Avesta, Part III. trans- in W. H. Roscher’s Asmsfiihrliches 

lated by L. H. Mills (Oxford, 1887),  Lexthon der griechischen UG MO MASENGN 


p. 199 (Sacred Books of the East, vol, ei thologie, Wi. 1052. 

XXXL.) A. Nt Williams Jackson, ‘‘ Die 
3 J. Darmesteter, Ormasd et Ahri- ee Religion ”, in W. Geiger und 

MAH, Pi 32 E. Kuhn, Greeadriss der traatschen 


4 J. Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahri- — Philologte, ii. 033. 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 35 


some Iranian scholars who speak with authority. Thus, 
summing up the result of his investigation of the character 
of Ahura Mazda, the veteran German scholar, Fr. Spiegel, 
observes: “We have found two things: first, that Ahura 
Mazda is conceived of as a thoroughly spiritual being ; 
second, that he stands infinitely high above all other beings, 
even those of the world of light, all of which, collectively 
and individually, are viewed as his creatures. This unique 
position which Ahura Mazda occupies in the Iranian religion 
is very noteworthy. Among his features no single one 
reminds us of an Aryan or even an Indian god, and I 
therefore entirely share the opinion of Windischmann, that 
Ahura Mazda does not date from the Aryan period but 
is a creation of the Iranian genius.”' To the same effect 
J. H. Moulton held that when in the doctrine of Zara- 
thushtra the great god Ahura Mazda took his place at 
the centre of the Iranian religion, he had lost, if he ever 
possessed, all real traits of an elemental deity and was 
conceived of as essentially a moral and a spiritual God.’ 
Another eminent scholar, the late L. von Schroeder, also 
denied that Ahura Mazda was a personification of the sky 
or indeed of any natural phenomenon; like Spiegel and 
Moulton, he held that Ahura Mazda was a purely spiritual 
deity, but unlike Spiegel he would practically identify Ahura 
Mazda with Varuna and refer him, or at all events the 
original on whom he was modelled by Zarathushtra, back 
to the pantheon of the still undivided Aryans.’ 

On the respective validity of these conflicting opinions 
I am not competent to pronounce an opinion; I am content 
to record the two views without attempting either to judge 
or to reconcile them. 


§ 4. The Worship of the Sky among the ancient Greeks 


The ancient Greeks personified and deified the sky under Two 


ancient 


two different names, Zeus and Uranus ; and, as we have seen, (oo. oe 
_ gods, Zeus 
1 Fr, Spiegel, Zrdnische <Alter- 3 L. von Schroeder, Arische Rel» and Uranus. 


thumskunde, ii, 25. cton, I, Eindettung. Der altartsche 
2 J. H. Moulton, Zarly Zoroastrian- Himmelsgott, pp. 281 sg., 321, 326 
ism, pp. 60 sg., 94 599. Soy 334 59-, 339, 341 599. 


The myth 
of Uranus, 
how he 
marriedthe 
Earth- 
goddess 
and begat 
the Titans. 


How 
Uranus'was 
mutilated 
and 
deposed by 
his own 
son Cronus. 


WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLE SS CHAR 


36 
these two sky-gods corresponded in name and origin to the 
two Vedic sky-gods, Dyaus and Varuna.’ But the history 
of the two Greek gods, like that of their Indian counterparts, 
was very different. For whereas Wranus, a transparent 
personification of the sky, the name of which he _ bore,” 
always remained a dim, remote figure of mythology, to whom 
no temples were built, no sacrifices offered, no prayers 
addressed, Zeus on the contrary occupied from the earliest 
times of which we have record a position of acknowledged 
supremacy over all the other gods, and as time went on his 
old physical basis in the vault of heaven tended to fall more 
and more into the background, obscured by the glory of the 
ethical and spiritual attributes with which a purer morality 
and a higher flight of religious thought gradually invested 
his majestic figure. 

But though the old sky-god Uranus was never admitted 
to a share of Greek worship, he played a not unimportant 
part in Greek mythology. In the beginning of time he is 
said to have married the Earth-goddess, and by her to have 
become the father of Ocean, Rhea, Cronus, and other ancient 
divinities known as the Titans.” But Uranus was a cruel 
father, and as fast as his wife bore him children he hid them 
away in a secret den of the earth and would not suffer them 
to come up to the light of day, and, lost to all paternal 
feelings, he even chuckled over. the wicked deed. But the 
Earth-goddess was straitened by reason of the monstrous 
brood thus crammed into her entrails, and she plotted against 
her unfeeling husband. She madea great sickle of adamant 
or flint, and offering it to her imprisoned offspring urged 
them to attack the author of their being with this formidable 
weapon. They shrank appalled at the impiety and danger 
of the task; Cronus alone, the youngest of them, plucked 
up courage, and undertook to do the deed. So his mother 
placed the sickle in his hands and put himin ambush. And 
when night fell, and Uranus went to bed and embraced his 


1 The Greek sky-god in his double — bridge, 1914-1925). 


9 


form is discussed by I.. von Schroeder, 2 


Der 


Arische Religion, 1. Fintlettuns, 
allarische Himmelsgott, pp. 445 sq¢. 
Zeus is the subject of a monumental 
monograph by Mr, A.B. Cook, still in- 
complete (Zezs, vols. i. and i1., Cam- 


Uranus is the Latinized form of 
ouranos (ovpavds), which was, and still 
is, the ordinary name for ‘*sky” in 
Greek. 

3 Hesiod,  Zheogony, 
Apollodorus, 1, 1. 1-3. 


1.32) 1 38y5 


Il WORSHTP OF SEY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS ay 


spouse the Earth-goddess, Cronus stretched forth his hand, 
and shore off his father’s genital member, and cast it away 
behind him. The drops of blood all fell on the bosom of 
the Earth-goddess, and quickened by them she in due time 
gave birth to the Furies and the Giants. But as for his 
father’s severed member, Cronus threw it into the sea. 
Tossed to and fro on the billows, the salt-sea foam gathered 
round it, and from the foam issued Aphrodite, goddess of 
love.’ Not content with mutilating his father, the unnatural 
son Cronus deposed him, and with the help and assent of his 
brethren was himself elevated to the vacant throne of heaven.” 

But ill deeds do not prosper, and the punishment which How 
he had inflicted on his father was in time to recoil on his own (T'S, 
head at the hands of his offspring. For Cronus married his sister Rhea 
sister Rhea and had by her the goddesses Hestia, Demeter, eat: 
and Hera, and the gods Pluto, Poseidon, and Zeus. But an bis 
oracle of Earth and Sky warned him that he should in time reed 
be dethroned by his own son, and to prevent the fulfilment he should 

; - be deposed 

of the prophecy the unnatural father adopted the precaution py one of 
of swallowing his progeny as soon as they were born. Five 5's sons. 
of the family had thus perished ; but when the mother was 
about to give birth to Zeus, the youngest, she besought her 
parents the Sky-god (Uranus) and the Earth-goddess to 
help her to conceal the babe. So they sent her to Crete ; How Zeus, 
and when the infant Zeus was born, the Earth-goddess hid pated 
him in a cave, and wrapping up a stone in swaddling bands, born, __ 
she gave it to Cronus to swallow instead of the child. The etre "'s 
trick was successful. Deceived by the baby linen, the divine maw. 
father bolted the stone without a qualm or a scruple, and 
congratulated himself on having thus effectually disposed, 
as he fancied, of the last pretender to the throne of heaven. 
Little did he suspect that his latest-born son Zeus survived 
and would yet conquer him, drive him from the throne, and 


reign over the immortal gods, even as he himself had deposed How Zeus 


. A . é and his 
his father and reigned in his stead.° brethesa 
Now Zeus was a very fine child, and when he had grown and sisters 
: made war 
up to manhood, or rather to godhead, he called in the help oy their 
: aba ; , father 
1 Hesiod, ; Theogony, 154-192; <Apollodorus, 1. I. 5-7. According to Cee 
Apollodorus, i. 1, 2-4. Apollodorus, it was Rhea, not the deposed 
2 Apollodorus, i. I. 4. Earth-goddess, who gave the stone to pin, 


3 Hesiod, TZheogony, 453-491; Cronus. 


38 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


of Metis (“Cunning”), daughter of Ocean, and she gave 
Cronus a dose. No sooner had he gulped it down, than he 
was seized with a fit of vomiting, when up came, first of all, 
the stone, which must have lain heavy on his stomach, and 
after it the divine infants Pluto, Poseidon, and the rest, 
whom he had swallowed. With the aid of these, his brothers 
and sisters, Zeus waged war on his father Cronus and the 
whole brood of the Titans. The war lasted ten years. The 
Cyclopes supplied the three gods with arms. To Zeus they 
gave thunder and lightning,.to Pluto a helmet, and to 
Poseidon a trident. Armed with these weapons, the gods 
conquered the Titans and shut them up in the gloomy 
depths of Tartarus, a dank and mouldy dungeon in a gulf 
so deep that a man would be a whole year in falling from 
top to bottom, tossed about upon the wings of grievous 
whirlwinds. From that dismal place there is no escape ; 
for the roots of earth and sea compose the massy roof; and 
round about there runs a wall of brass, and brazen gates, 
wrought by Poseidon’s hand, are shut upon the prisoners ; 
and on the walls and at the gates monsters with hundred 
hands keep watch and ward.’ Having thrust the fallen 
How Zeus, Titans down into this dolorous abyss, the three brother 
Aspe gods, Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto, cast lots for the now 


and Pluto 

divided the vacant sovereignty. To Zeus fell the dominion of the sky, 

nae to Poseidon the dominion of the sea, and to Pluto the 
dominion of the infernal regions.” 

How Zeus Afterwards Zeus, now established on the throne of 

ohana do heaven, married Metis, the daughter of Ocean, who had 

hg helped him to the throne by administering the emetic to his 

ts Pa father Cronus. Now Metis, whose name means Craft or 

foley by Cunning, was wiser than gods and mortal men; but Sky 

‘and Earth warned Zeus, as they had warned his father 

before him, that his wife would give birth to a son who 

should prove more mighty than his sire and should reign as 

king over gods and men. To prevent this catastrophe Zeus 

had recourse to the same simple expedient as his father 


Cronus ; but instead of awaiting the birth of a son and then 


1 Apollodorus, i. 2. 1; Hesiod, earth and the unvintaged sea”’. 
Theogony, 492-506, 617-745. Accord- 
ing to Homer (liad, xiv. 203 sy.), 2 Apollodorus, i. 2. 1; Homer, 


Zeus shut up Cronus ‘‘beneath the /ééad, xv. 187-193. 


11 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 39 


swallowing him, Zeus preferred to take time by the forelock 
by swallowing his wife before she could give birth to the 
heir apparent. This accordingly he did,' and the stratagem 
would seem to have been perfectly successful ; for henceforth 
Zeus remained the undisputed lord of heaven and head of 
the Greek pantheon until he was finally deposed by the 
Christian god.’ 

Such, in brief, is the barbarous legend of the three Greek Cronus an 
Sky-gods, father, son, and grandson, who reigned successively Lae 
after each other, and of whom the first two were deposed Greek 
and cruelly ill-treated by their offspring. That the first and "1°8Y 
third of the triad were sky-gods, is certain; there is more 
doubt about the middle one, Cronus, whose figure remains 
among the darkest and most mysterious in the Greek 
pantheon. No satisfactory derivation of his name has been 
suggested. He may be, as many have thought, a foreign 
deity, perhaps the god of an aboriginal race which the Greek 
invaders found in possession of the land and conquered, 
annexing some of their gods as well as part of their territory. 

The story of how Cronus swallowed his children has often been 
compared to the Semitic practice of sacrificing children to the Comparison 
gods, in particular to the Carthaginian practice of placing O!h's myth 


with the 
children on the sloping hands of a brazen image from which Semitic 


they rolled into a pit of fire. The Carthaginian god to whom Siar 
these human sacrifices were offered was identified by the children to 
Greeks with Cronus,? and this identification lends colour to '* §°"* 
the theory that in the story of Cronus and his children we 

have a reminiscence of a cruel ritual rather than a cosmo- 

gonical myth of physical phenomena.® Yet whatever may 

have been his original meaning and attributes, when we find 

him interpolated in a mythical story between two undoubted 
sky-gods, as the son of the one and the father of the other, we 


can hardly doubt that in the mind of the story-teller Cronus 


' Hesiod, 7heogony, 886-990, 929 &- 3 As to Cronus, see M. Mayer, 
929 (ed. H. G. Evelyn- White); ‘‘ Kronos,” in W. H. Roscher’s Lexrkon 
Apollodorus, i. 3.6; Scholiaston Plato, er griechischen und rimischen Myth- 
Timaeus, p. 23 0. oloyze, ii. 1452 sgg.; L. Preller, 


* Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14. See  Grtechische Mythologie’, bearbeitet 
further Zhe Golden Bough, Part IV., von C. Robert, i. 43 sgg.; O. Gruppe, 
The Dying God, pp. 74 59., 166 sgg.3  Griechische Mythologie, pp. 1104 59. ; 
A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. (Cambridge, L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek 
IQI4) pp. 721 sg. States, 1. 23 sqq. 


Orphic 
story of the 
mutilation 
of Cronus. 


The story 
of the muti- 
lation of 
Uranus is 
perhaps a 
myth of the 
separation 
of earth 
and sky. 


40 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuapr. 


was at least temporarily invested with the character of a 
sky-god. If we cut out the episode of Cronus as a later 
interpolation, due to the contact of the Greeks with an alien 
race, we shall be left with the two unquestionable sky-gods, 
Uranus and Zeus, as father and son, instead of grandfather 
and grandson, and shall be driven to regard Zeus instead of 
Cronus as the unfilial mutilator of his own father.! Indeed, 
according to one tradition, which was adopted by the Orphic 
theology, Zeus made his father Cronus drunk with honey- 
wine, bound him fast, and castrated him, even as Cronus had 
castrated his own father, Uranus.” 

Be that as it may, the savage tale of the mutilation of 
Uranus by his own offspring is most plausibly explained as 
a myth of the separation of earth and sky,? which were 
supposed by the ancestors of the Greeks, as by many other 
primitive peoples, to have been originally joined together, 
or, in mythical language, locked firmly together in a 
nuptial embrace. A reminiscence of the time when the sky 
was supposed to lie flat on the earth, involving it in total 
darkness, seems to linger in the statement of the story-teller 
that Uranus hid away his children in a secret place of the 
earth and would not suffer them to see the light.* Indeed, 
the belief that sky and earth were of old inseparate is 
recorded by Euripides in some verses which he puts in the 
mouth of the heroine, Melanippe: 


‘* Not mine the tale—I learned tt from my mother-— 
That heaven and earth were once a single whole ; 
But when they parted, each from each asunder, 
They brought forth all things and produced them to the ight— 
Trees, winged things, beasts and the creatures of the brine 
And race of mortals” ® 


1 L. von Schroeder conjectured that G. Dindorf; Scholiast on Apollonius 


in the original myth Uranus was the 
father, not the grandfather, of Zeus, 
and that Cronus was a Cretan or 
Carian god interpolated at a later date 
in the story. See L. von Schroeder, 
Arische Religion, 1. Hinlettung, Der 
altarische Himmelsgott, pp. 463 note ?, 
466 note!, The conjecture is plausible. 

2 Porphyry, De antro nympharum, 
16. Compare Dio Chrysostom, Or. 
xi. vol. i. p, 210 ed. L. Dindorf; 
Aristides, Or. iii. vol. i. p. 35 ed. 


Rhodius, Argonautica, iv. 983. 

3 Andrew Lang, Custom and ALyth 
(London, 1884), pp. 45 sgg.3; 7a, 
Myth, Ritual, and Religion (London, 
1887), 1. 295 sgq. 

4 Hesiod, 7heog. 155-159. In the 
corresponding passage of Apollodorus 
(i. I. 2) it is said that Uranus cast his 
offspring ‘‘into Tartarus, a gloomy 
place in Hades”, which seems a less 
primitive version of the story. — 

® Euripides, Frag. 484, in 77agz- 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 41 


However, we cannot be sure that Euripides is here 
reporting a genuine popular tradition ; for Diodorus Siculus, 
who quotes the passage, reminds us that the poet was a 
disciple of the philosopher Anaxagoras, and it may well 
be that in these lines the tragedian is merely stating a 
cosmogonical speculation of his master or possibly a deduc- 
tion of his own. Certainly, it was a tenet of Anaxagoras 
that formerly “all things were together, infinite in number 
and in minuteness; and when all things were together, it 
was impossible, on account of their minuteness, to distinguish 
anything ”.! From such a cosmogonical theory, which 
reminds us of the nebular hypothesis of Laplace,” it would 
have been an easy inference that sky and earth were once 
interming!led and indistinguishable. 

Elsewhere, however, Euripides has described in un- Euripides 
doubtedly mythical language the mythical marriage of Sky Hoheas 
and Earth. In a passage descriptive of the power of of Sky and 
Aphrodite, the goddess of ‘love, he tells us that : Pana 


‘* The Earth doth love the rain, what time the parched ground, 
Barren with drought, doth crave a shower. 
The solemn Sky, too, full of rain, doth love 
To fall upon the Earth, when Aphrodite prompts. 
Then when the two are joined in love's embrace, 
They make all things to grow for us, and feed them too, 
Whereby the race of mortals lives and thrives”. 


In writing thus Euripides may well have had in mind Aeschylus 


eeees : . the 
similar lines of his great predecessor, Aeschylus, on the jharriage of 
nuptials of Heaven and Earth. The passage runs thus: Heaven 


and Earth. 
“ The holy Heaven doth tive to wed the ground, 
And Earth conceives a love of marriage. 
The rain that falls from husband Heaven 
Impregnates Earth, and she for mortal men gives birth 
To pastoral herbage and to Ceres’ corn” 4 


corum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed, A. 
Nauck2, p. 511. The passage is quoted 
by Dionysius MHalicarnasensis, 47s 
erat ica, 4 Tie VOlISV. +P. 355° ed. 
Reiske (incompletely) ; = Diodorus 
Siculus, i. 7. 7 (except the first line) ; 
Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangeltica, i. 
ieee 

1 Anaxagoras, Frag. 1, in Die Frag- 
mente der Vorsokratitker, griechisch 


und deutsch von H. Diels ?, i. (Berlin, 
1906), p. 313. 

2 Compare J. H. Jeans, 7he Nebular 
Hypothesis and Modern Cosmogony, 
(Oxford, 1923). 

3 Athenaeus, xiii. 73, pp. 599F- 
6008; Euripides, frag. 898, in 
Fragmenta Tragtcorum Graecorum, 
ed. Nauck 2, p. 648. 


4 Athenaeus, xiii. 600 B ; 


73> P- 


Sky 

( Uranus) 
and Earth 
invoked in 
oaths. 


The other 
Greek Sky- 
god, Zeus, 
was always 
conceived 
as a 
personal 
being, 
closely 
associated 
with the . 
vault of 
heaven. 


His 
epithets are 
commonly 
derived 
from the 
celestial 
phenomena 
clouds, rain 


thunder, and 


lightning. 


42 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Ciap. 


In these passages from the tragedians the word for sky 
or heaven is, as usual, ouranos, or, in its Latinized form, 
uranus. Thus the identity of the mythical Uranus with the 
physical sky is manifest and indubitable. If there could 
remain any doubt on this point, it would be resolved by a 
passage in an Homeric hymn addressed to “ Earth, Mother 
of All Things,” in which the poet says, “ Hail, Mother of the 
gods, wife of starry Uranus!” ? 

Lastly, Earth and Sky (under his proper name of Uranus) 
were personified and coupled together as witnesses to oaths, 
with the implication that as deities they would punish 
perjury. This appeal to the deified powers of nature is as 
old as Homer. Thus in the //zad Hera swears by Earth 
and Sky and the dripping water of Styx, and in the Odyssey 
Calypso calls the same three powers to witness that she will 
do no harm to Ulysses.” 

So much for the old Sky-god Uranus. We must now 
turn for a little to the other Greek Sky-god Zeus who, 
through the splendours of Greek poetry and art, cast his 
ancient rival and mythical grandfather into deep shadow. 
In Zeus the process of personification was carried much 
farther than in Uranus; his physical basis in the sky is 
overgrown and obscured by a luxuriant growth of mythology. 
Indeed, it appears that the name Zeus never occurs in Greek — 
as a simple designation of the sky; it is always the name 
of a personal being, a mighty god, who stands in some 
relation, near or remote, to the vault of heaven. Yet that 
Zeus, like his Vedic namesake Dyaus, was in origin a sky- 
god, there can be no reasonable doubt.? His epithets and 
attributes combine unmistakeably to prove it. He was 
addressed as Heavenly (ouvantos) Zeus,* and as Heavenly Zeus 
Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, pp. 
1100:sg. 3) A..B. Cook, Zems3. (Came 
bridge, 1914), pp. I sgg. I formerly 


argued that Zeus was primarily a god 
of the oak, and only secondarily a 


Aeschylus, /rag. 44, in Zragtcorum 
'Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. Nauck 2, 
‘p. 44. In this passage I read rpdcat 
and ékvge with the MSS. instead of 


mwdjoac and devee, with some editors. 


1 Homertc Hymns, xxx. 17. 

2 Homer, //zad, xv. 36, Odyssey, v. 
184. Compare 'Homeric Hymn to the 
Pythian Apollo, 156 (334). 

3 On Zeus as a sky-god, see L. 
Preller, Griechische Mythologie*, bear- 
beitet von C. Robert, i. 115 sgg.3 O. 


god of the thundering sky. But this 
view I now believe to be erroneous, 
and I have long retracted it, See 
The Golden Bough, Part VII., Balder 
the Beautiful, vol. i. Preface, pp. ix sg. 

4 Callimachus, Hymn, i. 54, Epigr. 
liii. 3. 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 43 


he was worshipped at Sparta, where one of the two kings regu- 
larly officiated as his priest.! But commonly his epithets and 
attributes refer to celestial phenomena, such as clouds, rain, 
thunder and lightning, rather than to the actual vault of 
heaven. Thus Homer speaks of Zeus gathering clouds, wrapt 
in black clouds, wielding the lightning, delighting in the 
thunderbolt, and so on.” _In one passage he says that “ Zeus 
rained continuously ;”* and elsewhere he speaks repeatedly 
of the~ rain of Zeus.* He declares that Zeus set fast Zeus as the 
the rainbow in the clouds to be a sign to mortal men.° Saitek 
A Greek expression for rain-water is “ water from Zeus.” ® 
On the acropolis of Athens there was an image of Earth 
praying to Zeus for rain." And in time of drought the 
Athenians themselves prayed, saying, “Rain, rain, O 
dear Zeus, on the cornland of the Athenians and on 
the plains”.» An altar of Showery Zeus stood on Mount 
Hymettus, and there were altars of Rainy Zeus in various 
parts of Greece.? One of them was in the island of Cos, 
and the members of a religious society used to go in pro- 
cession and offer sacrifices on the altar when the thirsty 
land stood in need of refreshing showers.'® On the ridge of 
Mount Tmolus, near Sardes, there was a spot called the 
Birthplace of Rainy Zeus, probably because omens of rain 
were drawn from clouds resting upon it’? On Mount Parnes 
there was an altar on which people sacrificed to Zeus, 
invoking him either as the Showery god or as the Averter 
of Ills.’ The climate of eastern Argolis is dry, and the 
rugged mountains are little better than a stony waterless 


1 Herodotus, vi. 56. 

2 For the epithets and the refer- 
ences to the passages, see H. Ebeling, 
Lexicon Homericum (Leipzig, 1880- 
1885), i. 521. 

3 lad, xii. 25 59. 

4 Jliad, v. 91, xi. 493, xii. 286. 

5 Titad, xi. 27 sq. 

© Herodotus, ii. 13; Apollonius 
Rhodius, Argonaut. ii. 1120; Plutarch, 
Quaestiones Naturales, ii. 4; Ditten- 
berger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Crae- 
carum%, No. 93, vol. i. p. 123. 

7 Pausanias, i. 24. 7. 

8 Marcus Antoninus, v. 7. 

9 Pausanias, ii, 19. 8, ix. 39. 4. 


' Professor 


10 Paton and Hicks, 7he /uscriptions 
of Cos (Oxford, 1891), No. 382, pp. 
269 sgy.; Dittenberger, Sy/loge /n- 
seriptionum Graecarum%, No, 1107, 
vol. iii. pp. 266 sg.; M. VP. Nilssen, 
Griechische Feste von religioser Bedeu- 
tung mit Ausschluss der Atlischen 
(Leipzig, 1906), p. 4. According to 
Nilsson, the worshippers 
mentioned in the inscription were not 
a religious association but the whole 
community (70 xoiwdv), 


1 Joannes Lydus, De mensibus, iv. 48, 
ed. Bekkers 


12 Pausanias, i. 32. 2. 


The prayer 
of Acacus 
to Zeus 

for rain. 


Zeus 
associated 
with 
mountain- 
tops. Rain- 
making 
ceremony 
at a spring 
on Mount 
Lycaeus. 


44 WORSHIP-OF SKY AMONG ARYAN SLOLLE Se CEA 


wilderness. On one of them named Mount Arachnaeus, or 
the Spider Mountain, stood altars of Zeus and Hera, and 
when rain was wanted, the people sacrificed there to the god 
and goddess.’ It is said that once, when all Greece was 
parched with drought, envoys assembled in Aegina from 
every quarter and besought Aeacus, the king of the island, 
to intercede with his father Zeus for rain.27, The king com- 
plied with the petition, and by sacrifices and prayers he 
wrung the needed showers from his sire Zeus, the sky-god. 
“Complying with their petition, Aeacus ascended the 
Hellenic mountain, and stretching out pure hands to heaven 
he called on the common god, and prayed him to take pity 
on afflicted Greece. And even while he prayed a loud clap 
of thunder pealed, and all the surrounding sky was overcast, 
and furious and continuous showers of rain burst out and 
flooded the whole land. Thus was exuberant fertility 
procured for the fruits of the earth by the prayers of 
Aeacus.”*® In gratitude for this timely answer to his 
prayers, Aeacus built a sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Pan- 
hellenius in Aegina. No place could well be more 
appropriate for a temple of the sky and the rain; for the 
sharp peak of Mount Panhellenius, cutting the sky-line like 
a blue horn, is a conspicuous landmark viewed from all the 
neighbouring coasts of the Saronic gulf, and in antiquity a 
cloud settling on the mountain was regarded as a sign of 
rain.” 

As a god of the sky and the rain, Zeus was naturally 
associated with mountains, whose tops seem to touch the 
sky, and are often veiled in rain-clouds. The god was said 
to have been reared on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia, where 


there is a spring which was reported, like the Danube, to flow: 


with an equal body of water winter and summer. If there 
was a long drought, and the seeds in the earth and’ the 


1 Pausanias, li. 25. 10. As to the 28, p. 753 ed. Potter; Scholiast on 
climate and scenery of these barren Pindar, Mem. v. 9 (17). Aeacus was 
mountains, see A. Philippson, Der said to be the son of Zeus by Aegina, 
Peloponnes (Berlin, 1891), pp. 43 sg., daughter of Asopus (Apollodorus, /.¢.). 
65. # 3 . 

2 Isocrates, Zvagoras, 14; Diodorus cement Maree are? i 
Siculus, iv. 61. I sg. 3; Pausanias, ii. * Pausanias, ii. 30. 4. 

29. 7 sy.; Apollodorus, ili. 12. 6; 5 Theophrastus, De sigzzs tempestat. 
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. vi. 3. i. 24. ; : 


i 


ro WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 45 


leaves of the trees were withering, the priest of Lycaean Zeus 
used to look to the water and pray ; and having prayed and 
offered the sacrifices enjoined by custom, he let down an oak 
branch to the surface of the spring, but not deep into it; and 
tie water being stirred, there rose a mist-like vapour, and in 
a little the vapour became a cloud, and gathering other 
clouds to itself it caused rain to fall on the land of Arcadia.! 
In these ceremonies the sacrifices and prayers for rain were 
reinforced by the magical rite of dipping an oak-bough in 
the water. As the oak-tree was sacred to Zeus,” it was 
natural to suppose that the damping of the oak-leaves would 
induce or compel the reluctant or forgetful deity to send the 
wished-for showers. 

At Cleonae in Argolis watchmen were maintained at Ceremonies 
the public expense to look out for hail-storms. When ‘or. 
they saw a hail-cloud approaching they made a signal, at Cleonae 
whereupon the farmers or vinedressers turned out and “‘S°" 
sacrificed lambs or fowls. People who were too poor to 
offer lambs or fowls pricked their fingers and offered their 
own blood to the clouds to induce them to go away some- 
where else. We are told, and may readily believe, that the 
obliging hail-cloud turned aside quite as readily from a field in 
which a few drops of human blood had been offered to the 
cloud as from one in which it had been propitiated with more 
costly sacrifices. But if the hail-storm obstinately refused to 
accept the sacrifices, and to hearken to the spells of the 
magicians, and the crops suffered in consequence, the watch- 
men were brought to the bar of justice and punished for 
neglect of duty.2 From Plutarch we learn that the men 
thus set to look out for hail-storms made use particularly of 
mole’s blood and menstruous rags for the purpose of averting The 
the clouds." ag ee 

fication of 

In these quaint rites for getting rid of hail-clouds there the clouds 


: : implied by 
is no mention of Zeus, and we need not suppose that he Seer ae 


entered for a moment into the minds of the farmers when monies 
they slaughtered their lambs or scratched their fingers; it Pr" 


was the clouds which were personified as divine beings who primitive 


stratum of 

1 Pausanias, viii. 38. 2-4. 6; Clement of Alexandria, S/o. vi. religious 
2 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The 3. 31, p. 754 ed. Potter. belief than 
Magic Art, ii. 358 sg. 4 Plutarch, QOuaestiones Conviviales, the worship 


3 Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales,iv. vii. 2. 2. of Zeus. 


Aristo- 
phanes 
on the 
divinity of 
clouds. 


46 WORSHTP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES. Ciayr. 


could be appeased with blood or moved to compassion, and 
so induced to comply with the wishes and prayers of men. 
Here, therefore, we touch a deeper stratum, a more primitive 
form, of religious belief than in the worship’of the great 
sky-god Zeus; for whereas in that worship the sky, the 
clouds, the rain, the thunder, the lightning have been, so to 
say, gathered up and generalized in a single comprehensive 
conception, the personification of the clouds lags behind at 
that old stage of thought known as animism, which, in- 
capable of rising to large general ideas, is content to attribute 
to every object in nature its own individual spirit. The 
persistence of such a primitive worship of the clouds among 
peasants long after the great sky-god Zeus had been en- 
shred in stately temples and adored with pompous rites, is 
very instructive ; it reminds us of the old truth, which we are 
too apt to forget, that contemporaries in time are often very 
far from being contemporaries in mental evolution. The 
philosopher and the savage rub shoulders in civilized society 
to-day as they did in Greece of old; for when farmers and 
vinedressers were offering their- blood to the clouds at 
Cleonae, Seneca was philosophizing at Rome, and Jesus had 
already preached and died in Judea. If in discussing the 
nature of Zeus as a sky-god I have noticed the quaint rustic 
rites of Cleonae, it is because they exhibit in an elementary 
and perfectly transparent form that personification of celestial 
phenomena which attained its highest manifestation in Zeus. 

In his amusing parody of the Socratic method and 
doctrine, Aristophanes represents the philosopher as. dis- 
crediting the existence of Zeus, but treating the Clouds as 
great goddesses, who are the real causes of rain, thunder, 
and lightning.’ Doubtless the poet himself regarded the 
idea as manifestly absurd ; but we may suppose that many 
of his rustic hearers, who had flocked into the city to 
witness the Dionysiac festival or to escape the prowling. 
bands of the enemy in the open fields, saw nothing to laugh 
at in the divinity of clouds, and their faith in the aerial 
deities may have been strengthened if, while they sat in 
the open air on the benches of the theatre, which still 
rise, tier above tier, on the sunny side of the Acropolis, 


1 Aristophanes, Clouds, 252-411. 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 47 


a heavy bank of clouds, drifting up from Mount Parnes, 
blotted out the blue Attic sky and, bursting with a peal 
of thunder overhead, drove the spectators, drenched and 
dripping, to their homes. As they scurried away to seek 
shelter, the pious Athenians may have thought to themselves, 
“This is what comes of poking fun at the Clouds and 
denying the existence of Zeus!” 

As a sky-god Zeus was supposed to wield the thunder Zeus as the 
and lightning; a multitude of epithets lavished upon him cinta, 
deal with that formidable side of his nature.’ It is said lightning. 
that when Zeus released the Cyclopes, whom their father 
Uranus had imprisoned, they rewarded their deliverer by 
fashioning for him the lightning, the thunder, and the 
thunderbolt. Armed with these weapons Zeus then over- 
threw the Titans, and trusting in the power of the celestial 
artillery he thenceforth ruled over gods and men.” In 
Homer he thunders and hurls the thunder-bolt with deadly 
aim and fatal effect ;* moreover, he gives omens to men 
by the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder.* At 
Olympia and elsewhere he was worshipped under the sur- 
name of Thunderbolt ;° and at Athens there was a sacrificial 
hearth of Lightning Zeus on the city wall, where some 
priestly officials watched for lightning over Mount Parnes at 
certain seasons of the year.° Further, spots which had been 
struck by lightning were regularly fenced in and dedicated 
to Zeus the Descender, that is, to the god who came down 
in the flash from heaven. Altars were set up within these 
enclosures and sacrifices offered on them. Several such 
places are known from inscriptions to have existed in 
Athens." } 

! ©. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, 2323; Joannes Malalas, Chronographia, 


p. III note %. viii. p. 199, ed. L.. Dindorf. 
Hesiod, 7heog. 501-506; Apollo- Sete eri pod: 
dorus, 1, 2. -I. i 
3 Tlomer, //Zad, xiv. 417, xv. I17, ‘ Pollux, ix. 41; Hesychius, s.v. 


xxi. 198 sg., 401; Odyssey, xii. 415  nrvovov; Etymologicum Magnum, p. 
sqq.; Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, 288. 341. 8 sgg.; Artemidorus, Oxzrocrit. 

4 Homer, //tad, viii. 170 5g., ix. ii. 9; Pausanias, v. 14. 10; Ditten- 
236 sg., xv. 377 5qg.3 Odyssey, xx. 102 berger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Grae- 
597+, Xxi. 413 599. carum=,  Nod:992, vols iil) p.) 123, 

5 Pausanias, v. 14. 73; H. Roehl, with the references to other inscrip- 
Inscriptiones Graecae antiquissimae tions; Ch. Michel, Reeweel a’ Juscrip- 
(Berlin, 1882), No. 103; Frankel, ‘ons grecques (Brussels, 1900), Nos. 
Inscriptiones von Pergamon, i, No, 747, 748, p. 634. 


48 WORSHIP OF SEY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES © CHAP. 


Zeus — As a god of the sky and the upper air Zeus could send 

pete cool winds to temper the burning heat of a Greek summer. 

ofcool Once upon a time, we are told, in the Aegean island of 

breezes in * r nt 

the island Ceos, the blaze of the midsummer sun about the rising of 

of Ceos. the Dogstar had parched the fields and spread a wasting 
sickness among men and beasts. In their distress the 
people summoned Aristaeus, son of Apollo, to their aid, that 
he might end the drought and stay the pestilence. He 
came and built an altar to Zeus under the title of Icmaeus 
or Icmius, that is, God of Moisture. On that altar in the 
mountains he offered sacrifices to Sirius or the Dogstar and 
to Zeus. The god accepted the «sacrifice “ands sentuetie 
Etesian winds to blow and cool the earth for forty days. 
Thereafter in the island of Ceos the priests continued every 
year to offer sacrifices on the mountains to the Dogstar and 
to pray to Zeus that he would send cool breezes, and every 
year Zeus hearkened to the prayer and sent the cool Etesian 
wind for forty days. In gratitude for this service Aristaeus 
was numbered among the gods; according to the learned 
poet Callimachus, he even took the title of Zeus Aristaeus.’ 
A sober Greek historian, Heraclides Ponticus, recorded that 
every year the people of Ceos were wont to observe care- 
fully the rising of the Dogstar, and from the appearance of 
the splendid star, whether shining brilliantly in a serene sky 
or looming dim through mist and cloud, they prognosticated 
the weather of the coming year, and with it the salubrity or 
unwholesomeness of the seasons.” It is thus that religion 
may develop, or degenerate, into science, and an altar make 
room for an observatory. 

With the But Greek thinkers could not rest-content with the con- 

aie ception of a world parcelled out between a trinity of brother 

conception gods—the god of the sky, the god of the sea, and the god 


See is of the nether regions. The idea of a tripartite divinity 


tended to” furnished them with no permanent halting-place on the long 

absorb and : , 

obscure March from polytheisra to monotheism. Urged by that 

ete imperious craving after simplicity and unity which is a 

e 

gods. 1 Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut. ii. 143; M. P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste 
516-527; Callimachus, dz¢za, iii. 1, von religtoser Bedeutung mit Ausschluss 
32-37, p- 208 ed. Mair; Hyginus, der Adtischen (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 6-8. 
Astronomica, ii. 4, pp. 37 Sy., ed. 


Bunte; Probus, on Virgil, Georg. i. 2 Cicero, De divinatione, i. 57. 130. 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 49 


fundamental impulse of human nature and essential to 
the conduct of human understanding, they tended more 
and more to resolve the trinity into unity, to fuse the three 
gods into one; and on this one great god they bestowed 
the name of Zeus. Thus’ the Sky-god finally absorbed 
and extinguished his brother deities: they were lost in 
his radiant glory, like stars that vanish before the rising 
sun. 
To this thought of the essential unity of the divine Aeschylus 
nature the deeply religious genius of Aeschylus gave a eetit 


powerful expression in the fifth century before our era. of Zeus. 
He said : 


“ Zeus ts the ether, Zeus the Earth, and Zeus the sky. 
In truth, Zeus ts all things and what there ts beyond them” 


In Zeus identi- 
fied with the 
ether by 
Euripides. 


Euripides identified Zeus with the all-embracing ether. 
verses of a lost play, verses often quoted by the ancients 
and translated by Cicero, he says: 


‘* Seest thou yon infinite ether aloft 
That clasps the earth in moist embrace ? 
That ether deem thou Zeus, esteem tt God”.” 


In another passage of a lost play he introduces a speaker 
who affirms that the ether is what men name Zeus.” 

Elsewhere he couples the ether of Zeus and the Earth 
as the universal parents : 


‘“* Barth the mighty and the ether of Zeus, 
Fle ts the begetter of men and gods ; 
And she, when she has caught the rain’s moist drops, 
Gives birth to mortals, 
Gives birth to pasture and the beasts after their kinds. 
Whence not unjustly 
She ts deemed mother of all things. 


! Aeschylus, Frag. 70, in Frag- 
menta Tragicorum Graecorum, ed, 


Strom. V. 14. 115, p. 717 ed. Potter; 
Eusebius, /’aeparatio Evangelica, xiii. 


Nauck 2, p. 70; Clement of Alexandria, 
Strom. Vv, 14. 115, p. 718 ed. Potter ; 
_ Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, xiii, 
13, vol. ii. p. 272, ed. Heinichen. 

2 Euripides, Frag. 941, in Frag- 
menta Tragicorum Graecorum, ed. 
Nauck2, p. 663; 
Tragoedus, 41; Clement of Alexandria, 


VOL. I 


Lucian, /upiter 


13, vol. li, p. 272, ed. Heinichen; 
Plutarch, De exztlio, 5 (omitting the 
last impious verse), For Cicero’s 
versified translation of the lines, see 
De natura deorum, ii, 25. 65. 

3 Euripides, Frag. 877, in Frag- 
menta Tragtcorum Graecorum, ed, 


Nauck 2, p. 642. 
E 


50 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuap. 


But that which has been born of earth 

To earth returns , 

And that which sprouted from etherial seed 
To heaven’s vault goes back. 

So nothing dies of all that into being comes, 
But each from cach ts parted 

And so takes another form” .} 


But we can hardly doubt that for the poet the name 

of Zeus was merely a cloak, a threadbare cloak, to hide 

a profound religious scepticism, which elsewhere he hardly 

takes the trouble to conceal. In one passage he says 
plainly, “Zeus, whoever Zeus may be, for I know him not 

except in speech” ;* and elsewhere he passionately asserts 

that there are no gods in heaven, and that nobody but a fool 

would believe such an old wives’ tale.2 No doubt all these 

sayings are put in the mouth of fictitious personages created 

by the poet to suit the exigencies of the drama ; but in them 

we seem to catch a ring of personal conviction which it 

is hardly possible to mistake; they probably reflect the real 

ES ic belief of the dramatist.* In identifying Zeus with the ether 
God identi. he appears to have accepted the doctrine of the early philo- 


fied with ~sopher Anaximenes, who taught that the infinite air was the 
the air by zoke . ; . 
Anaxi- Original matter out of which all things were produced in the 
menes, 


past, are produced in the present, and will be produced in 
the future, the processes of evolution and dissolution going 
on perpetually and to all appearance simultaneously. This 
air, infinite in extent and for ever in motion, he identified 
with God or the Supreme God; for according to one 
account he supposed the popular gods to participate in 
the universal process of generation and decay.” 


menta Tragicorum Graecorum, ed. 
Nauck 2, p. 445. 

4 The religious scepticism of Euri- 
pides was rightly emphasized by A. W. 
Verrall in his book urzpides the 
Rationalist (Cambridge, 1895). 


1 Euripides, Frag. 830, in Frag- 
menta Tragicorum Graecorum, ed. 
Nauck2, p. 633; Sextus Empiricus, 
p. 7-51, (lines, 21 -osg7.)-ed =) bekket 
(quoting the first seven lines without 
the author’s name); Clement of 


Refutatio omntum 


Alexandria, Strom, vi. 2. 24, p. 750 
(quoting the -last three lines from the 
Chrysippus of Euripides). 

2 Euripides, Frag. 480, in Frag- 
menta Tragicorum Graecorum, ed, 
Nauck?,° p: 510; 
Tragoedus, 41. 


3 Euripides, Frag. 286, in Frag- 


Lucian, /upzter 


> Hippolytus, 
Haerestum, i. 7; Plutarch, De placttis 
philosophorum, i. 3. 6; Cicero, De 
natura <deorum, -i, YO. 263 22., 
Academica, ii, 37. 1183; Lactantius, 
Divin. Institut, i. 5. See further 
Hl. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vor- 
sokrattker®, i, 17 sqgq.; E. Zeller, Die 
Philosophie der Griechen, i, 219 sqq. 


I WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 51 


About a century later than Euripides the comic poet Zeusidenti- 


: : : ; fied with the 
Philemon again gave expression to the view that Zeus was ,., Byine 


the air; but in his verses, as in those of his great predecessor, comic poet 
: ! Philemon. 

the name of the deity appears little more than a mask to 

cover a materialistic philosophy. He introduces the god 

himself speaking as follows : 


* WVhom no one, neither god nor man, can eer decetve, 
In what he does, or shall do, or has done in former days, 
That being, Tam he, 
To wit, the air, and you may also name me Zeits. 
The function of a god ts mine tn this, that I am everywhere, 
Flere in Athens, tn Patrae, in Sicily, 
In all the cities, and in every house, 
And in you all. There ts no place 
Where air is not; and he who everywhere exists 
Must needs in virtue of his omnipresence be omniscient” | 


A far more deeply religious spirit breathes in the famous Hymn to 


° ; Zeus of 
Flymn to Zeus composed in the third century before our era jhe stoic 


by Cleanthes, one of the founders of the Stoic school. He Philosopher 

: : : 5 . Cleanthes. 
addresses the god in terms of serious, indeed enthusiastic 
adoration : 


“ Nfost glorious of the Immortals, thou of many names, omnipotent for 
aye, 

O Zeus, founder of nature, who dost govern all things by law, 

All hail! For mortals all enjoy the right to call upon thee, 

Since we are thine offspring, the lot having fallen on us to be thine 

echo, 

We alone, all mortal things that live and creep on earth, 

Therefore will I hymn thee and sing thy might for ever. 

All yonder world that wheels about the earth 

Obeys thee, wheresoe’er thou leadest, and willingly ts swayed by thee. 
Such minister hast thou in thine unconquered hands, 

The two-edged, fiery, ever-living thunderbolt, 

For at its stroke all nature quakes. 

By it thou dost direct the universal reason, which through all things 
Runs, mingled with the lights both great and small, 

So great art thou, a king supreme for ever. 

Without thee, power divine, there is naught done on earth 

Nor in heaven's holy vault, nor in the deep, 

Save what bad men in their own folly perpetrate. 

But thou dost know how best to make the uneven even, 

To order the disorderly, and make the loveless loving. 


' Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 2. 32 (vol. i. p. 17 ed. Meineke). 


Aratus on 
the onini- 
presence 
and bene- 
ficence of 
Zeus, 


52 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


So hast thou harmonized in one all good things with the bad 

That they should form the Reason of the Eternal Universe, 

Which evil men, fleeing, abandon, 

Mortals tll-starred, who, coveting the gain of fancted good, 

Do netther see nor hear God’s universal law, 

That law, to which obedience yielding they might lead a life of sense 
and virtue, 

Lut they, strangers to goodness, seek their various ends : 

Some on the feverish quest of glory all agog, 

Others intent on lucre’s sorry gain, 

Others, voluptuous, all on ease and pleasure bent, 

Wander this way and that, nor ever reach the goal. 

But thou, O Zeus, all-bounteous, wrapt tn dusky clouds, lord of the 
thunderbolt, 

O save men from thetr baneful tgnorance, 

Disperse tt, Father, from their soul afar, grant that we do attain 

That wisdom, wherein trusting thou dost rule all things in justice, 

To the end that we, honoured by thee, may thee requite with honour, 

Hynning thy works for evermore, as doth become 

A mortal man, for sure nor men nor gods can win a guerdon greater 

Than to hymn the universal law in righteousness for aye”) 


Through this hymn, which I have rendered very im- 
perfectly, there runs a tone of religious fervour, which 
bespeaks the sincerity: of the poet. In the concluding 
address to the deity there is something of the organ swell 
with which Milton ends his lines At a Solemn Mustc : | 


“O may we soon agin renew that song, 
And keep tn tune with heaven, till God ere long 
To his celestial consort us unite, 
To live with him, and sing tn endless morn of light”. 


Certainly no contrast could well be greater than that 
between the Mephistophelean sneer of Euripides at Zeus and 
the ecstatic hymn of Cleanthes, between the conception of 
a world moved by cold, impersonal, unconscious forces alone, 
and that of a universe fashioned and guided by a being of 
supreme wisdom, supreme power, and supreme goodness, 
whose praises it will be the highest bliss of mortals to sing 
in a rapture of music for ever. 

Contemporary with the philosopher Cleanthes was the 
poet Aratus; who introduced his astronomical poem with an 
exordium addressed to Zeus, which enjoys the distinction of 


1 Cleanthes, quoted by Stobaeus, Zc/ogae, i. 2. 12, vol. i. pp. 8 sg. ed. 
Meineke. 


1 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 53 


being the one solitary passage of pagan literature quoted in 
the Bible. The lines run somewhat as follows : 


“From Zeus let us begin, him never do we men pass by 
Ln silence. [ull of Zeus are all the streets, 
And all the market-places of men, full ts the sea, 
And full the havens, sure at every turn we all have need of Zeus, 
For we too are his offspring, and he, out of his kindness, gives to men 
Auspicious omens, and doth wake the world to work, 
Reminding men to earn their bread. He tells what time the clods are 
best } 
For ox and mattock, tells when the buxom season most invites 
To plant the shoots and cast the seeds of every sort. 
for himself tt was who set the signs in heaven, 
Marked out the constellations, and for the year contrived 
What stars should best the heralds be 
Of seasons to mankind, that so all things should grow unfailingly. 
Wherefore men do reverence to him ever, first and last. 
Flatl, Father, mighty marvel, mighty blessing 
Unto mankind” 1 | 


In these verses, as in the hymn of Cleanthes, the gracious The 
: : ry og ae providential 
and providential character of Zeus is strongly marked. In Quivscter 
both he is the wise and mighty Father of mankind, who has and father- 


ordained all things for the good of his children. This ee 
thought of the fatherhood of Zeus is very ancient, for in 
Homer he is commonly addressed as Father both by gods 
and men,” and in ancient India, as we saw, his namesake 
Dyaus was regularly accorded the same endearing epithet by 
his worshippers. But while Aratus conceives Zeus as a deity 
chiefly concerned in ministering to the material well-being and 
comfort of mankind, the thought of the Stoic Cleanthes takes 
a much higher flight, dwelling mainly on the moral aspect 
of the deity as the source of that universal reason and 
universal law to which not mankind alone but all living 
beings must conform at their peril. For the philosopher is 
clearly at pains to solve the ancient, the perennial problem 
of reconciling the existence of evil in the world with the 
supposition of an all-wise, all-powerful], and all-good Creator. 
1 Aratus, Phaenomena, 1-15. The occurs in the hymn of Cleanthes to 
expression ‘*‘ For we too are: his off- Zeus. See above, p. 51. 
spring” (rob yap Kal yévos eiuév, line * Leb warep, Womer, Ziad, psy; 
5) is quoted by St. Paul (Acts of the v. 757, :762, villi. 236, xiii, 631, 


Apostles, xvii. 28). A very similar Odyssey, iv. 341, vii. 311, xvil. 132, 
expression (ék god yap yévos éouév) xviii. 235, xx. 201, xxiv. 376. 


The 
pseudo- 
Aristotle 
on the 
universal 
divinity of 
Zeus. 


54 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES . citar. 


On that knotty point he appears to take refuge in the 
popular solution of the freedom of the will: if men go 
wrong, as unquestionably they do, it is all the fault of their 
own blind folly, for which the Creator cannot justly be held 
responsible. Let them only conform to the order of nature 
and the moral law established by the deity, and all will go 
well with them. 

But perhaps the most complete expression of the uni- 
versal divinity of Zeus is to be found in a treatise on the 
universe which passes under the name of Aristotle and is 
included in his works, though no doubt it is the composition 
of a much later age. The passage runs as follows: 

“There is one being of many names, who is designated 
by all the attributes of which he is himself the author. We 
call him Zen and Zeus, using the words to signify ‘He by 
whom we live’ (sdmen). He is said to be the son of 
Cronus and of Time (chronos), because he endures from 
eternity to eternity. He is called He of the Lightning, He 
of the Thunder, He of the Thunderbolt, Bright, Etherial, 
Rainy, after the rain, the thunderbolts, and all the rest. 
Moreover, he is named Fruitful after the fruits, and Civic 
after the cities; from his social relations he is called the 
Family God, He of the Courtyard, He of the Kinsfolk, the 
Paternal God; also the God of Fellowship, the Friendly 
One, the Hospitable, the Soldier God, Holder of Trophies, 
Purifier, Avenger, and the Gracious One, as poets say, the 
Saviour, the Deliverer in truth, and, in a word, the Heavenly 
and the Earthly God, who takes his names from the whole 
range of nature and of fortune, since he is himself the cause 
of all. Hence in the Orphic poems it is not ill’said: 


‘Zeus was the first and Zeus the last, god of the flashing thunderbolt : 

Zeus ts the head, and Zeus the middle, for of Zeus were all things 
made, 

Zeus ts the foundation of the earth and of the starry sky. 

Zeus was a male, Zeus was a nymph divine, 

Zeus ts the breath of all things, Zeus the rush of the unwearied fire. 

Zeus ts the root of Ocean, Zeus the lord of all, god of the flashing 
thunderbolt?” 


1 Aristotle, De mundo ad Alexan- variations, as from Aristotle by 
drum, 7, p. 401 ed. Bekker. The  Stobaeus, Fc/ogae, i. 2. 3, vol. i. pp. 
passage is quoted, with some trifling 22ed. Meineke. Stobaeus also quotes 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 


55 


Iinally, the stoical deification of the whole universe 
under the name of Zeus is summed up in a few words by a 
certain Arius Didymus, a writer of unknown date: ‘“ The 
whole universe, with all its parts, they call God. They say 
that it is one alone, and finite, and living, and a god, for in 
it are contained all bodies, and there is no vacuum in it... . 
For these reasons we must deem that the god who directs 
the whole takes thought for men, seeing that he is benefi- 
cent, and good, and kind, and just, and possessed of all the 
virtues. Wherefore the universe is also called Zeus, since 
to us he is the cause of life” (sé). 

Thus from a simple childlike personification of the sky, 
Greek thought advanced step by step to the conception of 
a Supreme God, a Heavenly Father, the beneficent Creator 
and Preserver of the universe. 

If in Greek philosophy the idea of Zeus, the Sky-god, 
reached its culminating point somewhat late, after the genius 
of the nation had passed its meridian and was declining 
towards its still splendid sunset, it was otherwise in Greek 
art. At the very moment when that genius touched its 
zenith, the great sculptor Phidias embodied the ideal of 
Zeus in that famous image at Olympia, which, if we may 
judge of it by the praises lavished on it by antiquity, must 
have been one of the greatest glories of the ancient world, 
one of the most marvellous creations of the human hand.” 
The Roman general, Aemilius Paulus, the conqueror of 
Macedonia, was deeply moved by the sight of the image ; 
he felt as if he were in the presence of the god himself, and 
declared that Phidias alone had succeeded in embodying 
the Homeric conception of Zeus.* Cicero says that Phidias 


the Orphic poem 
length (Zc/ogae, i. 2. 23, vol. 1. pp. 


2 The passages of ancient writers 
referring to the statue are collected 


at much greater 


10 sg. ed. Meineke). Most of the 
epithets applied to Zeus in this passage 
are enumerated and explained by Dio 
Chrysostom (O». xii. vol. i. pp. 237 59.5 
ed, L. Dindorf). 

1 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 
xv. 15, vol. ii. pp. 401 sg., ed. Hein- 
ichen. As to the Stoical conception of 
Zeus, see further E. Zeller, Dée Phzlo- 
sophie der Griechen, Vritter Theil, 
Erste Abtheilung’ (Leipzig, 1880), pp. 


324 5g. 


and printed in full by J. Overbeck, 
Die antiken Schriftquellen wr Ge- 
schichte der Aitinste bet den Critechen 
(Leipzig, 1868), pp. 125-136. Com- 
pare 7a@., Griechische Kunstmythologis, 
Besonderer Theil, i. (Leipzig, 1871), 
pp. 34 sgg. 3 Pausanias, v. 11., 1, with 
my commentary, vol. ili, pp. 530 579. 


3 Livy, xlvi 28; Plutarch, dems/ius 
Paulus, 28; Polybius, quoted by 
Suidas, s.v. Pedias, 


Arius 
Didymus 
on the 
identi- 
fication of 
the universe 
with Zeus. 


The ideal 
of Zeus 
embodied 
by Phidias 
inhisimage 
of the god 
at Olympia. 


56 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES chiar. 


fashioned the image, not after any living model, but after 
that ideal beauty which he saw with the inward eye alone.’ 
Quintilian asserts that the beauty of the image served to 
deepen the popular religion, the majesty of the image 
equalling the majesty of the god. A poet declared that 
either the god must have come from heaven to earth to 
show Phidias his image, or Phidias must have gone to heaven 
to behold the deity in person.® The statue was reckoned 
one of the seven wonders of the world,* and to die without 
having seen it was deemed a misfortune. The Greek 
rhetorician, Dio Chrysostom, a man of fine taste, extolled it 
in one of his speeches. He calls it the most beautiful image 
on earth, and the dearest to the gods.® He represents 
Phidias speaking of his “peaceful and everywhere gentle 
Zeus, the overseer, as it were, of united and harmonious 
Greece, whom, with the help of my art and in consultation 
with the wise and good city of Elis I set up, mild and 
august in an unconstrained attitude, the giver of life and 
breath and all good things, the common father and saviour 
and guardian of mankind, so far as it was possible for mortal 
man to conceive and imitate the divine and infinite nature”.’ 
And elsewhere he says: “ Methinks that if one who is heavy 
laden in mind, who has drained the cup of misfortune and 


_ sorrow, and whom sweet sleep visits no more; were to 


The Greek 
Sky-gods 
Zeus and 
Uranus 
compared 
tothe Vedic 
Sky-gods 
Dyaus and’ 
Varuna, 


stand before this image, he would forget all the griefs and 
troubles that are incident to the life of man.” ® 

So far did the Sky-god Zeus outrun his mythical pre- 
decessor, the Sky-god Uranus, in the race of glory. By a 
curious antithesis the careers of the two Greek Sky-gods 
were almost exactly the reverse of those of their two Indian 
namesakes, For whereas the Indian Dyaus always remained 
true to his simple origin as a personification of the sky, and 
as such was regularly coupled with his wife, the Earth- 
goddess, his Greek namesake Zeus never wedded the Earth- 

1 Cicero, Orator, ii, 8. Compare 5 Epictetus, Dessert. i. 6, 23. 

the passage of Plotinus (Zzzead. v. 8) 


quoted by J. Overbeck, Dze antiken 
Schriftquellen, p. 131, No. 716. 


6 Dio Chrysostom, Orat, xii. vol. i. 
p. 220, ed. L, Dindorf, 


2 Quintilian, Zrzs¢zt. Orat. xii, 10. 9. * Dio Chrysostom, Orat, xii. vol. 1, 
3 Anthologia Falatina, Appendix PP: 236 sg., ed. L. Dindorf. 
Planudea, iv. 81. 8 Dio Chrysostom, Oraé, xii. vol. i. 


4 Hyginus, Fad, 223. pp. 229 sg., ed. L. Dindorf, 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 57 


goddess, and lost more and more the traces of his connexion 
with the merely physical heaven, overshadowed as it were 
and obscured in the transcendent glory of his elevation to 
the position of Supreme God. On the other hand, while 
the Greek Uranus remained to the last a transparent per- 
sonification of the sky, his Indian namesake, Varuna, soon 
shed that character and underwent a_ transformation. 
analogous to that of the Greek Zeus, Thus, whereas in 
name Uranus corresponds to Varuna, and Zeus to Dyaus, 
in their mythical or divine character it is Uranus who 
answers to Dyaus, and Zeus to Varuna. If we are asked 
why two pairs of sky-gods, with names originally identical, 
ran opposite courses, we can only surmise that in each case 
the god who bore the ordinary name for the sky naturally 
kept the closer to his original nature; in Sanscrit he was 
Dyaus and in Greek Uranus ; whereas the god who bore a 
name which was no longer the ordinary name for the sky 
was more easily divorced from: the physical heaven, and thus 
lent himself more readily to the play of mythical fancy: in 
Sanscrit he was Varuna and in Greek Zeus. 


§ 5. Lhe Worship of the Sky among the ancient Romans 


In Roman religion we meet with the same old sky-god The Sky- 
as in Vedic and Greek mythology. His name is Jupiter, Fae 
which is etymologically identical with the Vedic Dyaus pitar the head of 
and the Greek Zeus pater, the latter part of his name (-f2¢er) Buin 
being only a slightly altered form of paver, “father”, while 
the first part (/w-) is contracted from Dzov, as appears from 
the forms of the divine name /ovzs and Doves which. occur 
in Old Latin and Oscan. A rare alternative form of Jupiter 
is Deespiter, in which the original form of the first part of 
the name is more clearly preserved." The sky-god Jupiter 
was always the’ head of the Roman pantheon, just as his 


! G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultius 
der Romer* (Munich, 1912), p. 113; 
Aust, s.v.*‘ Jupiter”, in W. H. Roscher’s 
Lexthon der griechischen und rimischen 
Mythologie, ii. 619 sgg.; O. Schrader, 
Reallextkon der indogermanischen A ller- 
tumskunde (Strassburg, 1901), p. 670 ; 
7d., ** Aryan Religion”, in J, Hastings’s 


Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 
is 333 H.°Hirt, Dze /ndogerinanen 
(Strassburg, 1905--1907), li. 505 sg. 
As to the forms Déovis and Diespiler, 
see Varro, De ingua Latina, v. 66 ; 
Aulus Gellius, v. 12.5 sg.; Macrobius 
Saturn, i, 15. 14; Servius on Virgil, 
Aen. ix, 567. 


Jupiter as 
the god of 


rain. 


53 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuav. 


namesake the sky-god Zeus was always the head of the 
Greek pantheon ; but unlike Zeus the process of personifica- 
tion was never carried so far in Jupiter as to obscure his 
original connexion with the sky. The Latin poets not 
uncommonly use his name as equivalent to sky,’ and Ennius 
in a verse which is often quoted says : | 

“Behold yon shining firmament which all name Jove.” ” 
In another passage the same poet declares that Jupiter “is 
what the Greeks call the . ir, which is the wind and the clouds, 
afterwards the rain, and the cold which follows rain”.? In 
quoting this latter passage the learned Roman antiquary Varro 
says plainly that Jupiter and Juno are the deified Sky and 
Earth ;* and many centuries afterwards the learned Christian 
Father, St. Augustine, declared that the identity of Jupiter 
with the sky was affirmed by a multitude of witnesses.° 

As a sky-god Jupiter was naturally associated with the 
rain, the thunder, and the lightning, of all of which he was 
supposed to be the author. One of his epithets was Rainy,° 
and another was Serene, with reference to a cloudless sky,’ 
because by his look he was believed to clear the cloudy 
heaven and still the storm.® In time of drought prayers 
were put up to Jupiter for rain. At Rome the women used 
to go in procession with bare feet and streaming hair up the 
slope to the Capitol, and implore the deity to send the 
needed showers; whereupon, we are told, the rain used 
immediately to fall in bucketsful, and they all returned 
home as wet as drowned rats. But nowadays, says the 
writer who records these good old times when rain was to 
be had of Jupiter for the asking, nobody believes that the 
sky is the sky, nobody fasts, nobody cares a brass button for 


4; i 252 O54 Festus, 5.2, 
‘¢Sublimem ”, p. 400, ed. Lindsay, 
by Varro, De 


1 Thus the expression sb Jove, 
‘Cunder Jupiter’’, means ‘‘under the 
open sky”. See Horace, Odes, 1. 1. 
Be Ovid w fast, Me. 130, 2905, Ml. 
BOF IVs COG Rta at FS eat. lk 7.2, 


3 Ennius, quoted 
lingua Latina, v. 65. 
4 Varro, loc. cit. 


il. 623; 7d., Aletam. iv. 260; Claudian, 
Panegyric on the Consuls Probinus and 
Olybrius, 36 sg. For other cases of 
Jupiter used as equivalent to ‘*sky”, 
see Horace, Odes, i. 22. 19 5g., lil. 10. 
7 sq., Epodes, xiii. 1 sg.; Virgil, Acé. 
vii. 60, Georgtcs, i. 418, li. 419. 

2 Cicero, De natura deorum, ii. 2. 


5 Augustine, De civitate Det, vil. 19. 

6 Tibullus, i. 7. 26 (Pluvto-Jovz) ; 
H. Dessau, Jnscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, No. 3043 (/ovd pluviale). 

7 H. Dessau, Jrscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, No. 3042. 

8 Virgil, Aen. i. 255. 


BE a 


I WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT.ROMANS 59 


Jupiter, and that is the reason why farming is now in so 
bad a way.’ Speaking of these prayers for rain, the Christian 
lather, Tertullian, says contemptuously, “ You sacrifice to 
Jupiter for rain, you command the people to go barefoot, 
you seek the sky on the Capitol, and you expect clouds 
from the ceiling”. In his’ capacity of a deity from whom 
rain could be elicited by prayer, like water from a barrel by 
turning a tap, Jupiter had an altar on the Aventine which 
was said to have been dedicated by the pious King Numa.° 

But of all the celestial phenomena none were so fre- 
quently ascribed to the direct agency of Jupiter as thunder 
and lightning. Many epithets derived from thunder and 
lightning were applied to him;* indeed the very names 
for lightning and thunderbolt were coupled with his name as 
if he were identical with these phenomena.’ In the Field 
of Mars at Rome there was a shrine of Lightning Jupiter.” 
In a familiar passage Horace speaks of Jupiter sending 
snow and hail on the earth, and hurling lightning from his 
red right hand, as if the flash of the lightning spread a ruddy 
glow over his uplifted arm.’ Augustus founded a temple 
of Thundering Jupiter on the Capitol in gratitude for a 
narrow escape which he had had of being killed by lightning. 
For once, when he was marching by night in Spain, it 
chanced that a flash of lightning grazed his litter and struck 
dead the slave who was carrying a torch in front of him. 


1 Petronius, Satyr. 44. 

2 Tertullian, Apologeticus, 40. 

3 Varro, De /ingua Latina, vi. 958; 
Livy, i. 20. 7,°“ Ad ea elictenda ex 
mentibus divinis Jovi Elicio aram in 
Aventino dicavit”. As to Jupiter 
Elictus, compare Livy, i. 31. 8; Ovid, 
Haste, Mi, 327 Sg. Pliny, Nat. fist, 
li. 140; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, 
v. I. The ancients apparently associ- 
ated Jupiter Elicius rather with lightning 
than with rain (Livy, Ovid, Arnobius, 
“lce.; Plutarch, Mumma, 15); but 
modern scholars are probably right in 
regarding Jupiter Elicius as primarily 
arain-god. See Aust, s.v. ‘‘ Jupiter”, 
in W. H. Roscher’s Lextkon der grie- 
chischen und romischen Mythologie, ii. 
656-658; G. Wissowa, Religion und 
Kultus der Roimer*, p. 121. The 


ceremony of aguaelicta mentioned by 
Tertullian (Afol/og, 40) speaks strongly 
in favour of this interpretation. 

4H. Dessau, /nscrtptiones J atinae 
Selectae, Nos. 3044, 3045, 3046, 3047, 
3048, 3051; Festus, s.v. Provorsum, 
p- 254, ed, Lindsay. 

5 1. Dessau, /useriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, Nos. 3052, 3053; G. Wissowa, 
Religion und Kultus der Romer*, p. 
121. 

6 Vitruvius, i, 2, 5. Vitruvius does 
not mention the place of the shrine, 
but that is determined by an inscription. 
See G. Henzen, Acta Fratrum <Ar- 
valium (Berlin, 1874), p. ccxxxvili ; 
Aust, 5.v.‘*Jupiter”, in W. H. Roscher’s 
Lextkon der griechischen und romischen 
Mythologie, ii. 656. 


T Horace, Odes, i. 2. 1-4. 


Jupiter as 
the god of 
thunder 
and 
lightning. 


The temple 
of Thunder- 
ing Jupiter 
on the 
Capitol. 


Jupiter 
Best and 
Greatest 
(Opltinus 


Maximus). 


60 WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG’ ARVAN PEOPLES 


CHAP, 


This Temple of Thundering Jupiter on the Capitol the devout 
emperor used often to visit. Once he dreamed that Capitoline 
Jupiter appeared to him and complained of the loss of 
his worshippers, who were drawn away from him by the 
attractions of the new temple. The emperor endeavoured 
to pacify the irate deity by assuring him that he had only 
planted the Thunderer there in order to serve as doorkeeper 
to the genuine and original Jupiter in his ancient temple 
hard by ; and to lend an air of plausibility to the excuse he 
caused bells to be hung from the gable of the Thunderer’s 
temple, so that visitors to the temple might ring a bell to 
advertise the god of their approach and to ascertain whether 
he was at home, just as Roman.gentlemen did when they 
called on their friends.’ The story is instructive as illustrat- 
ing the extreme jealousy of the divine nature; for in this 
case Capitoline Jupiter was clearly very jealous of Thunder- 
ing Jupiter, though in point of fact the Thunderer was only 
himself under another name. The anecdote shows, too, 
how easy it is to multiply gods by the simple process of 
multiplying their names ; for no doubt many simple-minded 
people would take the two Jupiters for two distinct and 
even rival deities, who competed against each other for the 
custom of their worshippers. In this or some such way 
Roman mythology might have developed a god of thunder 
different from and independent of the god of the sky. Else- 
where such a differentiation of divine functions has actually 
taken place. We shall see presently, for example, that the 
Babylonian pantheon included a Thunder-god as well asa 
Sky-god, the two deities being distinct in both name and 
nature. 

The supreme place which Jupiter occupied in the Roman 
pantheon is sufficiently indicated by the titles Best and 
Greatest (Optzimus Maximus) which were commonly bestowed 
on him, but which belonged especially to Capitoline Jupiter 


at Rome.” 


1 Suetonius, Azeustus, xxix. 1 and 3, 
xci, 2. Compare A/onumentum Ancy- 
ranun, ch, 29, p. 91, ed. Hardy. 

2 Cicero, De natura deorum, ii, 25. 
64; H. Dessau, /useripliones Latinae 


Selectae, Nos. 2996, 2997, 2999, 3000, 


When Cicero, on his return from exile, appealed 


3001, 3002, 3003, 3004, 3005, 3007, 
3008, 3009 ; FE. Aust, Die Religion der 
Romer (Miinster-i.-W., 1899), p. 122; 
L. Preller, Admsche Mythologie , i. 
205 sgg.; G. Wissowa, Religion und 
Aultus der *Roémer*, pp. 125 syg. ; 


II WORSHIP OF SKY AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 61 


to the pontiffs for the restoration of his house, which in his 
absence had been pulled down by his enemy, the ruffian 
Clodius, he concluded his speech with a peroration in which 
he solemnly invoked the protection of the Roman Gods, 
beginning with Capitoline Jupiter under his titles of Best 
and Greatest, and explaining that the Roman people gave 
the name of Best to Jupiter on account of his benefits, 
and the name of Greatest on account of his power.’ When 
Anthony addressed Caesar as king and attempted to place 
a crown on his head, Caesar refused it and sent the 
crown to Jupiter, Best and Greatest, on the Capitol, saying 
that Jupiter alone was king of the Romans.” Down to the 
end of paganism this worship of Jupiter Best and Greatest 
on the Capitol remained the heart of Roman religion: in 
a late dedication the deity is styled the chief of the gods, 
the governor of all things, the ruler of heaven and earth? 
He was indeed the divine embodiment of the Roman 
empire ; and when the emperor Constantine abandoned the 
old for a new religion, it was fitting that he also abandoned 
the ancient capital for a new seat of empire nearer to the 
birthplace of the Oriental faith which he had borrowed from 
Judaea. 


L. von Schroeder, Avische Religion, 1. HH. Dessau, JLuscriptiones Latinae 
Leintlettung. Der altarische Himmels-  Selectae, No. 2999, Jovi optimo 


gott, p. 470. maximo deorum principi, gubernatort 
1 Cicero, 770 domo sit, \vii. 144. omnmiunm rerum, cael’ terrarumague 
2 Suetonius, Dewees Julius, xxix. 2; rectort, ob reportatam ex genttlibus 
Dio Cassius, xliv. II. barbaris sloriam Flavius Leontius 


3 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum,  v(tr) plerfectissimus) dux per Africam 
vol. villi. Supplementum, Pars II. osuzt, The inscription is thought to 
(Berlin, 1894), p. 1748, No. 18219; date from the fourth century: A.D, 


The wor- 


ship of the 
sky among 


Ceti ky bebe ee wa 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY AMONG NON-ARYAN 
PEOPLES OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. The Worship of the Sky among the ancient Babylonians 
and Assyrians 


HAVING treated of the worship of the sky among the Aryan 
peoples of antiquity we now pass to consider that worship 


non-Aryan among peoples of different races and different languages. 


peoples, 


The 
Sumerians 
in Baby- 
lonia. 


We may begin with the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, 
the two peoples whose civilization dates from the remotest 
past of which we possess written records. 

To take the Babylonians first. It was at one time the 
fashion to regard Babylonian civilization as of purely Semitic 
origin, and to assume that the Semitic Babylonians and they 
alone were the founders of that complicated system of 
religious belief and practice which we know to have existed 
from a very early time on the banks of the Euphrates. But 
the extensive excavations conducted in Babylonia within 
recent years have proved beyond the reach of doubt that 
before the Semites ever reached Babylonia the country was 
occupied by a non-Semitic race known as the Sumerians, ” 
who tilled the land, reared cattle, built cities, dug canals, and 
developed a comparatively high civilization, including a 
copious literature. But there is some evidence that even 
the Sumerians were not the first inhabitants of the land. It 
is probable that, like the Semites of a later age, they were 
merely settlers in it, and that they reached the fertile valley 
of the two rivers from some mountainous region of Central 
Asia. Who occupied the country before the coming of the 
Sumerians we cannot say, for of the aborigines we know 

62 


cH. 11 WORSHIP OF SKY IN BABYLONIA'S ASSYRIA 63 


nothing. The first inhabitants of Babylonia of whom we 
have definite knowledge were the Sumerians; they deeply 
influenced the religion of the Semitic invaders who attacked 
and overthrew their empire, and it is impossible rightly to 
understand the religious systetn of the Semitic Babylonians 
without taking into account the foreign Sumerian influence 
under which it grew up.' 

The beginning of Sumerian influence in Babylonia is Antiquity 
lost in the mists of antiquity, but an eminent historian, the chee tas 
late Leonard W. King, was of opinion that the earliest Sue Sigh 
religious centres in the country may well have been tion: rise 
founded some six or seven thousand years before Christ. ae 
The decline of the political power of the Sumerians, on supremacy 
the other hand, may be assigned roughly to the centuries Babylon. 
Between 2500) B.c. and 2300 B.c. At ithe’ latter date 
Babylon had risen to a position of pre-eminence among the 
cities of the land, and the Semitic population had gained a 
complete mastery over their ancient rivals, whom they 
gradually absorbed. From that time onward the city of 
Babylon maintained her supremacy, and never ceased to be 
the capital of the country to which she afterwards gave her 
name.” 

While the Babylonians in their religious beliefs were The 
deeply influenced by the conquered Sumerians, they in their “°2F5"S , 
turn exercised a still deeper influence on their northern of the 
neighbours the Assyrians. At first, indeed, the Assyrians sea 
were no more than a handful of colonists from Babylonia, 
who carried with them the faith of their mother ccuntry to 
their new home. Though later on they gained their in- 
dependence, and after many centuries of conflict reduced the 
elder branch of their race to subjection, their system of 
religion, despite a few changes and modifications, always 
remained essentially Babylonian. Hence their religious 
writings may safely be used as materials for the study of 
Babylonian religion.» Indeed a great, perhaps the greatest, 
part of our knowledge of the Babylonian religion is derived 


11, W. King, Babylonian Religion Cambridge Ancient History, i.2 (Cam- 
and Mythology (London, 1899), pp. _ bridge, 1924) pp. 356 sqg¢. 
2 


1 sg. Compare za., A History of L. W. King, Babylonian Religion 
Sumer and Akkad (London, 1916), and Alythology, pp. 2 sq. 


pp. 1 sgg.; S. H. Langdon, in 7zhe 3 L. W. King, of. ctv. ‘p. 5. 


64 WORSHIP OF SKY BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cnuar. 


The library from Assyrian documents, and mainly from the thousands 


ous if clay tablets which once formed part of the library of 

pal at King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. That ruthless conqueror, 

Nineveh’ but enlightened patron of learning, was one of the last 
kings to occupy the throne of Assyria, reigning from 
669 B.c. to about 625 B.c. To his credit, he made great 
efforts to collect and preserve the old literature of Babylonia 
and Assyria. His scribes visited especially the ancient 
cities and temples of the south, and took copies of literary 
works of all sorts which they found there. These they 
gathered and arranged in the king’s palace at Nineveh, 
and the wrecks of that great library now form our prin- 
cipal source of information on Babylonian religion and 
mythology.’ 

The Baby- The gods of the Babylonians, in the forms under which 

feces they were worshipped during the later historical periods, were 

morphic. conceived as beings with very definite personalities. All 


the greater gods, though they wielded superhuman powers, 
were supposed to be endowed with human forms, possessed 
of human thought and feeling, and animated by human 
passions. Like men they were born, like men they loved 
and fought, and like men they died. In_ short, the 
Babylonian gods were highly anthropomorphic; the dis- 
tinction between- the worshipper and his god was not in 
kind but in degree.” 


Babylonian ~While the higher gods of the Babylonian pantheon have 


religion a 
worship of 
nature : 
the gods 
personifi- 
cations of 
natural 
forces, 


each their own strongly marked individualities, it is not 
difficult to discover the ground of their differentiation. On 
this subject I will quote the opinion of one of- our best 
authorities on Babylonian religion, the late Leonard W. 
King. I do so all the more gladly because his testimony 
goes to confirm the general thesis which I maintain in this 
treatise, namely, that a very large part of religion, at least 
in its earlier phases, is based on a direct personification of 
nature. Speaking of the Babylonian pantheon, Mr. King 
says: “ The characters of the gods themselves betray their 
origin, They are personifications of natural forces; in 
other words, the gods and many of the stories told concern- 
ing them are the best explanation the Babylonian could 
1 LL. W. King, of. cit. pp. 3 sg. 2 L. W. King, of. czt. pp. 8 sg. 


WW 6hWORSAIP OF SKY IN: BABYLONIA & ASSYRIA 65 


give, after many centuries of observation, of the forces and 
changes he saw at work around him.in the natural world. 
He saw the sun pass daily overhead, he observed the phases 
of the moon and the motions of the stars; he felt the wind 
and feared the tempest; but he had no notion that these 
things were the result of natural Jaws. In company with 
other primitive peoples he explained them as the work of 
beings very like himself. He thought of nature as animated 
throughout by numberless beings, some hostile and some 
favourable to mankind, in accordance with the treatment he 
had received from them. From the greater powers and 
forces in nature he deduced the existence of the greater 
gods, and in many of the legends and myths he told concern- 
ing them we may see his naive explanation of the working of 
the universe. He did not speak in allegory or symbol, but 
believed his stories literally, and moulded his life in accord- 
ance with their teaching. Babylonian religion, therefore, in 
its general aspect may be regarded as a worship of nature, 
and the gods themselves may be classified as the personifica- 
tions of various natural powers.” ! 

Now the Babylonians divided the whole realm of nature The Baby- 
into three departments, namely the Sky, the Earth, and the ee 
subterranean Water, and each of these departments they Anu, Bel, 
personified as a god. To the Sky-god they gave the name ie 
of Anu; to the Earth-god they gave the name of Bel; and 
to the Water-god they gave the name of Ea. These three 
gods were superior to all the other deities, but among 
themselves they were approximately equal. Together they 
embraced the whole universe within their sphere of influ- 
ence, thus forming a triad or trinity which may be compared 
to the Greek trinity of Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto. When, 
therefore, a worshipper invoked Anu, Bel, and Ea, he believed 
that he named all the powers that determine the fate of man, 
since their triple kingdom comprised within it all the realms 
of the many inferior deities.” At a very early period in 
Sumerian history we find these three great deities mentioned in 

1L. W. King, Babylonian Religion in E. Schrader’s Dze Keilinschrifien 

and Mythology, pp. 9 sq. und das Alte Testament? (Berlin, 1902), 

. p- 350; M. Jastrow, 7he Religion of 

2 L. W. King, Babylonian Religion Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, U.S.A., 
and Mythology, p. 14; H. Zimmern, 1898), pp. 107, 147 sgq. 

VOL. I F 


66 WORSHIP OF SKY BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES | ciiap. 


Sumerian close connexion with each other under their Sumerian names 
fee. of Anna or Ana, corresponding to Anu, of Enlil corresponding 
gods. to Bel, and of Enki corresponding to Ea. King Lugal-zaggisi, 
who caused the inscription to be written in which their names 
occur, was one of the earliest Sumerian rulers of whose reign 
we have evidence, and we can thus trace back the existence 
of this great trinity of gods to the very beginning of history. 
During the later periods the connexion of these deities with 
each other, as the three great gods of the universe, remained 
in full force. Each member of the trinity had his own centre 
Anu, of worship. Thus Anu, while he had temples in other parts 
principally of the country, was specially worshipped in Uruk, the Baby- 
worshipped ~ eh 
at Uruk lonian name of Erech, which is mentioned in Genesis as one 
So ae of the oldest cities of Babylonia.’ The Semitic god Bel was 
Nippur, identified with the Sumerian deity Enlil, whose worship in 
ma. *t E-Kur, as his temple in the city of Nippur was called, is the 
oldest, or one of the oldest, of the local cults attested by the 
archaic inscriptions. The worship of Ea, the third member 
of the trinity, took its rise in Eridu, the most southerly of 
the great cities of Babylonia. The site of the city, now 
marked by the mound of Abu Shahren, is some fifty miles 
distant from the mouth of the Shatt el-Arab; but in the 
earliest period of Babylonian history, before the formation 
of the present delta, the city must have stood on the shore 
of the Persian Gulf.? | 
Anu, the Anu, the name of the Babylonian Sky-god, means “the 
Sky-god. one on high”.® It is of Sumerian. origin, being probably 
derived from the Sumerian word az, signifying the sky ; in 
any case Anu is essentially a personification of the sky,* like 
His . Dyaus in Sanscrit, Zeus in Greek, and Jupiter in Latin. 
punahnited Though the three members of the trinity, as we have seen, 


to the other 


pede may be regarded as approximately equal in dignity and 
oO € . ° 
trinity. power, yet in theory a certain supremacy appears to have 


1 Genesis x. 10. 4H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s 

2 L. W. King, Babylonian Religion Die Keilinschriften und das Alte 
and Mythology, pp. 16 sg. As to TZestament?, pp. 351 5sg.; M. Jastrow, 
King Lugal-zaggisi, see L. W. King, 7Zkhe Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 
A History of Sumer and Akkad, pp. pp. 88-90; P. Dhorme, La Religion 
193 sgg. In this latter passage the  Assyro-Babylontenne (Paris, 1910), pp. 
aythor gives the god’s name as Ana, 53 sg.; Br. Meissner, Babylonten und 

3M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion of  Assyrien (Heidelberg, 1920-1925), 
Babylonia and Assyria, p. 153. li, 4. 


Ill WORSHIP OF SKY IN BABYLONIA & ASSYRIA 


67 


been assigned to the Sky-god, Anu, as standing at the head 
of the divine hierarchy, like the Sky-god, Zeus, at the head 
of the Greek pantheon.’ He was described by preference 
as King (sharru) and Father of the Gods (abu z/dnz).” His 
theoretical superiority to the other two persons of the trinity 
is clearly markéd by the assignation to him of the number 
sixty, the unit of the sexagesimal system, while the other 
two gods had to content themselves with the inferior 
numbers of fifty and forty respectively. Thus the Sky-god 
marched, so to say, in the van of the trinity, while the 
Water-god brought up the rear. The Sky-god, Anu, was 
naturally conceived of as dwelling in the radiant heaven ; 
there was the throne (fuss) on which he sat, and from 
which, as occasion served, he also stood up. His special 
home would seem to have been in the northern sky. 

Yet in spite of the lofty rank accorded to him as head 
of the pantheon, the worship of Anu appears never to 
have been popular in Babylonia. Though he passed 
for the Father of the Gods, he remained little more than 
an abstraction. None of the important cities of Baby- 


The wor- 
ship of 
Anu not 
popular in 
Babylonia. 


lonia and Assyria revered him as their patron deity.” 


It is true that he was worshipped specially in Der, but 
that city never attained to a position of ascendancy in 
the country. In Assyria his worship was thrown into the 
shade by that of the national god Ashur.® He was honoured, 
indeed, in Erech, but there his cult was soon ousted by the 
worship of his daughter Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of 
love, who was there inseparably associated with him. Not 
content with installing herself beside her father in the tempie 
of E-anna, “the house of heaven”, she introduced her 
characteristically licentious rites, which made the city a 
byword, and in which her Heavenly Father presumably had 
no share.’ In Ashur, the old capital of Assyria, the Sky- 


1M. Jastrow, of. cit. pp. 88, 207; of. czt. pp. 68 sg.; E. Meyer, Geschichte 


P. Dhorme, of. c7t. pp. 53 57., 66 sg. 
STi Zimimerm,.eoP. cid), p. 352); 
P. Dhorme, of. cz¢. p. 68. 
3M. Jastrow, of. cit. p. 465; UH. 
Zimmern, of. c7t. p. 352. 
4 HI, Zimmern, of. ccf. p. 352. 
Pelie “Zimmem). op). cz?, pp. °352 ; 
M. Jastrow, of. cé¢. p. 89; P. Dhorme, 


des Altertums,? i, 2 (Stuttgart and 
Berlin, 1909), p. 423; S. H. Langdon, 
in Zhe Cambridge Ancient History, 
i.2 396. 

or PoDhorme; op. c7/,. pp. 69 ‘ses 
M. Jastrow, of. c’t. pp. 155, 207. 

Lwrorine, wop cece ap, «09 +H, 
Zimmern, of, c#t, p. 352. As to the 


At Erech 
he was 
ousted by 
his 
daughter 
Ishtar. 


In Ashur 
the Sky- 
god Anu 
was 
differ- 
entiated 
from Ram- 
man or 
Adad, the 
god of 
thunder 
and 
lightning. 


The 
temple of 
Anu and 
Adad at 
Ashur 
rebuilt by 
Tiglath- 
pileser. 


68 WORSHIP OF SKY BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuatv. 


god Anu shared a temple with Ramman or Adad, the god 
of thunder and lightning, who was deemed his son.1 Thus 
the differentiation of the Thunder-god from the Sky-god, 
which was barely incipient in Roman religion,” was complete 
in Babylonian religion; the division of labour, which works 
such wonders in human society, was successfully applied in 
the society of the gods; the Supreme Being was relieved of the 
trouble of rolling the thunder and hurling the lightning, and 
might consequently devote himself with less interruption to 
that life of contemplation which may be thought peculiarly 
appropriate to a celestial deity. The temple of the two gods 
at Ashur was originally built by Shamshi-Adad, a high 
priestly official, but after going to decay for six hundred and 
forty-one years it was pulled down by Ashur-dan, King of 
Assyria. Sixty years afterwards, about I100 B.C., it was 
rebuilt in magnificent style by King Tiglath-pileser, who 
has recorded its restoration in an inscription. He tells us 
that in the beginning of his reign Anu and Adad, the great 
gods, his lords, demanded of him the restoration of their 
sacred dwelling. He proceeds: “I made bricks, and I 
cleared the ground, until I reached the artificial flat terrace 
upon which the old temple had been built. I laid its 
foundation upon the solid rock and incased the whole place 
with brick like a fireplace, overlaid on it a layer of fifty 
bricks in depth, and built upon this the foundations of the 
temple of Anu and Adad of large square stones. I built it 
from foundation to roof larger and grander than before, and 
erected also two great temple towers, fitting ornaments of 
their great divinities. The splendid temple, a brilliant and 
magnificent dwelling, the habitation of their joys, the house 
for their delight, shining as bright as the stars on heaven’s 
firmament and richly decorated with ornaments through the 
skill of my artists, I planned, devised, and thought out, 
built and completed. I made its interior brilliant like the 
dome of the heavens ; decorated its walls, like the splendour 


worship of Ishtar at Erech (Uruk), éstory, 1.2 306 sg. The huge walls 


see M. Jastrow, of. czt, pp. 84, 311, of the moat which surrounded the 
472, 475 sg., 648; H. Zimmern, of. — temple are still intact. 

cit, pp. 422 sg.; and as to the city, the 1M. Jastrow, of. c’t. pp. 153 59.; 
temple E-anna and its tower, seeS. H. 207. 


Langdon, in Zhe Cambridge Ancient 2 See above, p. 60. 


111 WORSHIP OF SKY IN BABYLONIA & ASSYRIA 69 


of the rising stars, and made it grand with resplendent 
brilliancy. I reared its temple towers to heaven and com- 
pleted its roof with burned brick; placed therein the upper 
terrace containing the chamber of their great divinities ; and 
led into its interior Anu’ and Adad, the great gods, and 
made them dwell in this their lofty home, thus gladdening 
the heart of their great divinities.” Having thus recounted 
the rebuilding of the temple the king prays to the two gods 
as follows: “ May, therefore, Anu and Adad turn to me 
truly and faithfully, accept graciously the lifting up of my 
hand, hearken unto my devout prayers, grant unto me and 
my reign abundance of rain, years of prosperity, and fruitful- 
ness in plenty! May they bring me back safely from 
battle and from flight; may they reduce to submission all 
the countries of my enemies, mountain regions that are 
powerful, and kings who are my adversaries! May they 
come nigh unto me and my priestly seed with friendly 
blessings ; may they establish my priesthood as firm as the 
rocks before Ashur and the great deities for the future and 
for ever!” ? 

This prayer for rain and fruitfulness is addressed with Adad per- 
great propriety to the gods of the sky and the thunder, who ee 
might reasonably be expected to fertilize the fruits of the to Anu by 
earth by the genial rain from heaven. If the Assyrian king Beet 
discriminated at all between the two great deities whom he 
so highly honoured, it would seem that he put his trust 
rather in the Thunder-god than in the Sky-god, for after 
invoking the curses of Anu and Adad on any who should 
thereafter break, destroy, or conceal his memorial slab and 
foundation cylinder and erase his signature, the monarch 
proceeds: “May Adad strike his country with disastrous 
lightning!” thus apparently implying that the lightning 
of the Thunder-god was a more efficient instrument of 
vengeance than any that the Sky-god could wield. Can we 
see in this a hint that at Ashur the Sky-god was being 
elbowed out by his own son, just as at Erech he was elbowed 
out by his own daughter ? 

1 ««Tnscription of Tiglath-pileser I., | quoting I have changed a single word, 
King of Assyria”, in R, F, Harper’s — substituting the English ‘‘ placed ” for 


Assyrian and Babylonian Literature the American “ located,” 
(New York, I901), pp. 25 sg. In 


Antu or 
Antum, the 
wife of 
Anu. 


In 
Egyptian 
mythology 
Sky (Nut) 
and [arth 
(Seb or 
Keb) area 
married 
couple; but 
the Sky 

is the wife, 
and the 
Earth is 
the hus- 
band. 


70 WORSHIP Ol SKY BY WON-AKY AV [250 FE fae 


As every god must have his wife, Anu was provided 
with .a consort called Antu or Antum.,, Her nameos 
apparently a feminine form of Anu, just as Bel had a female 
partner called Belit, whose name is a feminine form of his 
own.' In an inscription of Agumkakrime, who reigned 
over Babylon about 1650 2.C., the king prays, “May Anu 
and Antum, who live in heaven, send a blessing on Agum, 
the good king, who built the sanctuaries of Marduk and 
freed from obligation the workmen!”* But, apart from her 
character as a wife, Antu or Antum appears to have had 
no very distinct personality ; it is said that after the time of 
Agumkakrime she is never mentioned again in the inscrip- 
tions of Babylonian and Assyrian rulers.° Yet in the 
theological lists, which aimed at reducing the crowded 
pantheon to some sort of order and system, Anu was identi- 
fied with the sky and his wife Antu with the earth. Thus 
in the religion of Babylonia we find again that ancient 
myth of the marriage of Sky and Earth which we have 
already met with in the religions of India and Greece.. 


S12 


Herodotus tells us that the ancient Egyptians observed 
laws and customs which for the most part were exactly the 
reverse of those observed by the rest of mankind.’ The 
observation which the Father of History applied to the laws 
and customs of the Egyptians might perhaps be extended to 
their mythology. To take the particular instance with which 
we are here .concerned, they resembled other nations in 
personifying the Sky and Earth, and in marrying them to 
each other, but they differed from other nations in represent- 
ing the Earth as the husband and the Sky as the wife. 
The reason for this assignment of sexes to the two deities is 
grammatical; for in the Egyptian language the word for 
sky (pet) is feminine, and the word for earth (¢0) is 


Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, i, 2 


The Worshtp of the Sky among the ancient Egyptians 


Mie Tastrow pe 0p-6cte, ops PhS ae 21s 


Zimmern, of, ctt. p. 352; P. Dhorme, 
op. cit. p. 70. 

2 «Inscription of Agumkakrime”, 
in.R. F. Harper’s Assyrian and Baby- 
fonian Literature, p. 5. As to the 
date of King Agumkakrime, see E. 


(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1909), p. 585. 

3M. Jastrow, Ope cit pet $31 er 
Dhorme, of. ¢zt. p. 70. 

4 PP. Dhorme, La Religion Assyro- 
Babylonienne, p. 70. 

5 Herodotus, ii. 35. 


U1 WORSHIP. .OF SKY BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 71 


masculine." In Egyptian mythology the Earth-god_ is 
named Seb or Keb (for the name is variously rendered), and 
in art he is represented in human form reclining on the 
ground with one arm raised: the Sky-goddess is named Nut, 
and in art she is represented as a woman with her body 
arched over that of her husband, her feet resting on the 
ground at one of his extremities and her hands touching the 
ground at the other. Sometimes, as if to render her identity 
with the sky perfectly clear, her body is spangled with stars.” 

The Egyptians, like many other peoples, had a tradition Thesepara- 
that at first the sky and the earth were not separate from each Sty nua 
other. This they expressed in mythical form by represent- from Earth 
ing the Sky-goddess Nut lying flat on her husband the ate \ by 
Earth-god Seb or Keb, until Shu, the father of the Sky- Shu, the 
goddess, insinuated himself between the pair and raised up Rares 
the Sky-goddess, thus creating the sky and the earth in goddess. 
their present form and position. Egyptian artists were 
fond of depicting Shu in the act of uplifting the Sky-goddess 
and supporting her on his upraised hands. There were 
many variations in their representations of the scene. In 
some of them we see Shu holding up the boat of the 
Sun-god Ra under the body of the Sky-goddess ; in others 
we see the two boats of the Sun-god placed side by side on 
her back, the deity in the one boat being the Sun-god in 
his capacity of Khepera, while in the other he is Osiris. 
Sometimes the head of the Sky-goddess points to the east, 
and at other times to the west; sometimes the Earth-god 
lies with his head to the west, at other times with his head 
to the east. A text from the tombs of the Kings at Thebes 


t A. Erman, Die dgyptische Religion ® 
(Berlin, 1909), p. 7. 

2 A. Wiedemann, Weltgion of the 
Ancient Egyptians (London, 1897), 
pp. 230-232; A. Erman, Deze dgyplische 
Religion®, pp. 7, 14, 353 (Sir) E. A 
Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the 
Evy ptians (London, 1904), li. 97 5g., 
99, 100, 104 s¢. 

3 A. Erman, Die dey ptische Religion ?, 
pp. 35 sy.; A. Wiedemann, Aeligion 
of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 32 59.3 
(Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods 
of the Egyptians, ii. 98, 104, 105; 
J. H. Breasted, Hestory of the Ancient 


LRAT (London, 1908), p. 57. 

4° (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 7%e 
Gods of the Fg gyplians, Mas Oh ere hur 
scenes in which Shu is represented sup- 
porting the Sky-goddess on his hands, 
see (Sir) E. A, Wallis Budge, of, c7?. 
li. 99, with the plate facing p. 96; H. 
Brugsch, Religion und Alythologte der 
alten Agypler (Leipzig, 1885), p. 210; 
A. Wiedemann, Xelivgion of the Anctent 
Eevptians, p. 231; A. Erman, Dre 
agyptische Religion, p. 35; G. Maspero, 
ffistoire Anctenne des Peuples de 
P Orient Classique, les Origtnes (Paris, 
1895), p. 129. 


Nut the 
Mother of 
the Gods 
and of the 
Sun-god in 
particular. 


72 WORSHIP OF SKY BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES - CHAP. 


says of Shu that “he has divided the heaven from the earth ; 
he has uplifted the heaven in eternity above the earth”. 
The radical meaning of his name appears to be “the 
Uplifter ”, corresponding to the root sh#, “to uplift, to uplift 
oneself”; it expresses the belief that he was the supporter 
of the heavens, or the divinity who had once raised them 
and thus separated them from the earth.” In later times the 
Egyptians conceived of him as god of the air which fills the 
space between earth and sky.® As the god of that vast inter- 
mediate region Shu was thus appropriately represented under 
the form of a god who held up the sky with his two hands, 
one supporting it at the place of sunrise, and the other at 
the place of sunset ; several porcelain figures exist in which 
he is seen kneeling on one knee, in the act of lifting up with | 
his two hands the sky with the solar disk in it.‘ 

The Sky-goddess Nut is spoken of in Egyptian texts as 
“lady of heaven ”, “ mistress and mother of the gods”, “ Nut, 
the great lady, he gave birth to the gods”, “ Nut, who 
gave birth to the gods, the lady of heaven, the mistress of 
the two lands”.® She is usually represented in the form of 
a woman who bears on her head a vase of water, which has 
the phonetic value Vz, thus indicating’ both her name and 
her nature as the source of rain.© According to one myth, 
the Sky-goddess Nut gave birth to her son the Sun-god 
daily: traversing her body he arrived at her mouth, into 
which he disappeared, and passing through her body he 
was reborn the next morning. Another myth set forth how 
the sun sailed in a boat up the legs and over the back of 
the goddess until noon, when he embarked in another boat, 


1 A. Wiedemann, Aeligzon of the 4 (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe 


Ancient Egyptians, pp. 32 59 

2 A. Wiedemann, oii of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 33. But accord- 
ing to Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (Zhe 
Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 87), ‘‘ the 
name Shu appears to be derived from 
the root shu, ‘dry, parched, withered, 
empty’; Thus Shu was a god 
who was connected with the heat and 
dryness of sunlight and with the dry 
atmosphere which exists between the 
earth and the sky.” 

3 A. Erman, Dee dgyptische Religion, 
p40; 


Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 89. 

5 A, Wiedemann, ae of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 232; (Sir) E. 
A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of ete 
LEVEE OES, li, 102 sg, 

6 (Sir) E, A. Wallis Budge, The 
Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 103. In the 
illustration given by the author on this 
page Nut is figured as a woman with 
star-spangled body, standing erect, with 
her arms stretched at full length above 
her head ; beneath her arms is some- 
thing which may represent a vessel of 
water, 


MII WORSHIP OF SKY BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 73 


in which he continued his journey down the arms of the 
goddess until sunset. In the picture which accompanies 
and illustrates this myth, the whole body and limbs of the 
goddess are bespangled with stars, as if to remove any 
possible uncertainty about the nature of the object which 
she personified. 

But the Egyptians sometimes conceived of the sky not The sky 
as a woman but as a huge cow, the legs of which were held cm 
in position by various divinities, whilst the body of the animal by the 
was supported by the god Shu. In one representation Ofecnnier 
this celestial cow the stars are figured in a row along the cw. 
stomach of the animal, while the Sun is seen in his boat 
between: its forelegs. This heavenly cow was sometimes 
identified with Nut and sometimes with the goddess Hathor. 
‘When the Sun-god Ra decided to retire from the lower world, 
he took up his abode on the back of the cow, and there he 
ruled the upper heaven, which, as the text relates, he had 
himself created, together with all those happy heavenly 
fields, where the pious Egyptian hoped after death to dwell 
among the millions of departed spirits who sing the praises 
of the God their maker.” 

1 (Sir) E, A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Ancient Egyptians, p. 64; (Sir) E. A. 
Gods of the Egyptians, ii, 104 5g., with Wallis Budge,.7%e Gods ofthe Egyptians, 
plate facing p. 96. li 106; E. Erman, Deze dgyptische 

2 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the Religion, pp. 7, 8, 15. 


Heaven or 
the Sky the 
Supreme 
God in the 
Chinese 
pantheon. 


CAC ERY evs 


THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY AMONG THE CIVILIZED 
PEOPLES OF THE. FAR EAST 


§ 1. The Worship of the Sky in China 


ANOTHER people of ancient civilization who have wor- 
shipped the sky from time immemorial are the Chinese. 
Indeed, in the religion of China the sky, personified as a 
divine power, has always occupied, and still occupies, the 
supreme place in the national pantheon. It is worshipped not 
only under its proper name 77?’enx, “sky”, but also under the 
title of Zz, “Emperor”, and still more commonly under the 
title of Shang-tz, “ Emperor-above” or “Supreme Emperor ”. 
These latter titles clearly indicate the conception of the sky 
as a personal being and supreme ruler.’ In the Chinese 
classics the word for sky or heaven (7°’zex,. pronounced 
Thien) is everywhere used to denote the Supreme Power, 
ruling and governing all the affairs of men with an omni- 
potent and omniscient righteousness and goodness; and 
this impersonal term is constantly interchanged in the same 
paragraph for the personal names Emperor (77) and Supreme 
Emperor (Shang-ti).” Thus we may safely conclude that 

1 J. IL Plath, Die Religion und der 1910), p. 103; Marcel Granet, Za 
Cultus der alten Chinesen, i.(Munich, Religion des Chinots (Paris, 1922), p. 
1862) pp. 13, 18 sg.; (Sir) E. B. 49. Shang-ti is the term which most 
Tylor, /imitive Culture* (London, Protestant missionaries in China have 
1873), ii. 257, 352; J. Leggein Sacred adopted to represent the word God ; for 
Books of the East, vol, iii. (Oxford, the same purpose the Catholic mission- 
1879) pp. xxiii sgg.; A. Réville, Za aries have chosen the expression 7°%ex 
Religion Chinotse (Paris), 1889, pp. CA, that is ‘*‘ Lord of Heaven”. See 
134 sgg.3; C. de Harlez, Les Religions WK. F. Johnston, Ltom and Dragon in 
dé la Chine (Leipzig, 1891), pp. 31 Northern China (London, 1910), p. 


509-5 35 syqg.3 J. J. M. de Groot, Ze 395 note}. 
Religion of the Chinese (New York, 2 J. Legge, op. cit. p. xxiv. 


74 


cCHariv 2HE WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN CHINA, 75 


from the earliest. times of which we have any record the 
Chinese have personified the vault of heaven as a mighty, 
indeed almighty god. More than that, there are indications 
in the Chinese classics that the god was conceived in human 
shape. For example, we read of a barren woman who 
sacrificed and then walked in the footprints of the Sky-god 
(Shang-¢t) in order to obtain offspring. Yet, whether from 
religious veneration or a lack of poetic fancy, the process of 
personification in his case was never carried very far: his 
majestic figure always remained aloof, remote, and awful: 
it was never, like that of the Greek Sky-god Zeus, familiar- 
ized. and brought home to the minds and hearts of his 
worshippers by intimate personal traits, gossipy anecdotes, 
and romantic adventures, such as the dethronement of 
Cronus and.the war with the Giants.’ 

In conformity with this lofty, but somewhat frigid, con- 
ception of the Sky-god his worship has always remained 
more or less cold, abstract, and official. It is the religion 
of the State, not of the people: it attracts the devotion and 
secures the homage of the learned, it does not win the 
affection and excite the enthusiasm of the great mass of 
men. Candidates who have passed their examinations 
return their thanks to Heaven, and at marriage bride and 
bridegroom pay their respects to the same mighty being. 
In the school of Confucius there are devotees who celebrate 
the worship of Heaven at the new and the full moon; others 
are content to do so once a year. But on the whole the 
occasions on which the ordinary man prostrates himself 
before the great Celestial Being, the Supreme Emperor, are 
not frequent, nor are the devotions which the deity receives 
characterized by religious fervour: the worship of Heaven 
counts for little in the life of the ordinary Chinese. Heaven 
is too high and too majestic, they say, to receive the ap- 
proaches of common folk, to consult their needs, and to grant 


The wor- 
ship of 
Heaven or 
the Sky is 
the religion 
of the State 
rather than 
of the 
people. 


their requests. Most people believe that the earthly Emperor, The 


who claims to be descended from heaven and hence bears 


Chinese 
I-mperor 


the title of Son of Heaven, is alone qualified to render to called the 


Son of 


Heaven its due. and to celebrate its rites with fitting pomp yeavyen, 


and solemnity. Hence it has come about that the full 


1 A. Réville, Za Religion Chinotse, pp. 136 sg. 


Heaven 
deemed 
responsible 
for the 
course of 
the seasons 
and the 
supply of 
food. 


The great 
sacrifice to 
Heaven on 


76 WORSHIP: OF SKYVsIN THE FARSLASS 


CHAT’, 


worship of Heaven is regularly celebrated at the Imperial 
Court alone. There it has attained to the dignity of a 
fundamental institution of State, and the Chinese people 
would be exceedingly displeased and exceedingly disquieted 
if the Emperor failed to discharge this essential part of his 
duties. This state of public opinion is a logical outcome of 
the conception which people in general have formed of the 
character of the Celestial Power, the Supreme Emperor. 
As he is supposed to govern the world by general laws 
without consideration for individuals, it is natural and ap- 
propriate that the nation as a whole, represented by and, as 
it were, summed up in the person of the Emperor, should 
pay him the honours which he has a right to expect from 
mankind. That is why the worship of Heaven holds the 
first place in the Imperial religion, which is at the same 
time the religion of the State.' 

While Heaven or the Sky-god is believed to regulate 
the whole order of nature, he is deemed particularly re- 
sponsible for the order of the seasons, on which the welfare 
and indeed the existence of mankind is dependent. Hence 
sacrifices are offered to him for a good year, in other words, 
for abundant crops; and as the crops in their turn depend 
on the fall of rain, he is expected and requested to send 
seasonable showers to refresh and fertilize the thirsty and 
barren earth. This utilitarian aspect of the Sky-god, in 
virtue of which he is ultimately charged with the mainten- 
ance of the food supply, is the principal and perhaps the 
original source of the religious veneration which he inspires 
in the minds of his worshippers.” 

Of all the sacrifices offered to Heaven in China the 
most important and the most august is that which takes 


the night of place on the night of the winter solstice, that is, on the — 


the winter 
solstice. 


longest night of the year. The moment is eminently suit- 
able ; since from that night the light, of which Heaven is in 
some sense the personification, begins to increase; the god is 
born again, the day is his birthday. For the same reason 


1 A. Réville, Za Religion Chinoise, 
pp. 140-142. As to the title ‘*Son 
of Heaven” bestowed on the emperor, 
and his claim to be descended from 
Heaven, see Marcel Granet, La Religion 


des Chinois, pp. 50, 56 sg. ; as to the 
title, compare J. Legge, in Sacred 
Books of the East, vol. iii. p. xxv note}. 

2 Marcel Granet, La Religion des 
Chinots, p. 49. 


IV De ONS EG Perdiit iit) tdvy GtALIVA aa 


in antiquity the worshippers of Mithra selected the winter 
solstice as the birthday of the Sun, and in order to wean 
the pagans from their devotion to the Sun on that day, the 
Catholic Church adroitly transferred the birthday of Christ 
from Old Christmas on the sixth of January to New 
Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December.’ The Chinese 
sacrifice to Heaven at midwinter is offered on the Altar of 
Heaven (Zveu-tan), also known as the Round Iminence 
(Yuen-khiu), which .stands to the south of the Chinese 
quarter of Peking. The altar, open to the sky, consists of 
three round marble terraces, of different dimensions, placed 
one above the other, all provided with balustrades and 
accessible by marble staircases, which exactly face the four 
quarters of the compass. It thus represents the celestial 
sphere with its cardinal points. A wide area, including a 
park with huge old trees, surrounds this, the greatest altar 
in the world. The whole is enclosed by high walls, within 
which there is room for a town of forty or fifty thousand 
inhabitants. 

On the longest night of the year the Emperor, the Son 
of Heaven, repairs, or rather used till lately to repair, to the 
altar in great state. Princes, grandees, officers, attendants, 
troops to the number of many hundreds, escort him, and 
many hundreds more assemble on the altar to receive him. 
Everybody is gorgeously attired in the richest ceremonial 
costume. Lit up by the flickering glare of great torches, 
the spectacle is very imposing. Every prince, minister, and 
mandarin has his allotted place on the terraces of the altar 
or on the marble pavement which surrounds it. On the 
upper terrace is planted perpendicularly a large tablet 
bearing the inscription, “Imperial Heaven — Supreme 
Emperor’: it Stands in a shrine on the north side of the 
altar and faces due south. In two rows, facing east and 
west, are shrines containing tablets sacred to the ancestors 
of the Emperor; and the presence of the ancestral tablets 
is significant, because it shows that the Son of Heaven 
worships Heaven as the oldest, the original ancestor of 
his house. Before cach tablet a variety of sacrificial 
food is placed in conformity with ancient precedent and 

1 See below, pp. 526-528. 


The Altar 
of Heaven 
at Peking. 


The scene 
at the altar. 


78 WORSHIP OF SEY IN THE FAR EAST CHAP, 


tradition. On the second terrace stand tablets in honour 
of the spirits of the Sun, the Moon, the Great Bear, the 
five planets, the twenty-eight principal constellations, and 
the host of stars; also tablets dedicated to the gods of 
Clouds and Raii and Thunder. Before these tablets in 
like manner are set dishes and baskets containing sacrifices. 
Cows, goats, and swine have been slaughtered to provide 
all these offerings; and while the ceremonies are being 
performed a bullock is burning on a pyre as a special 
sacrifice to High Heaven. 


The The Emperor, who has purified himself for the solemn 
paca rite by fasting, is led up the altar by the southern flight of 


atthe altar. steps, which on both sides is thronged by tninisters and 
dignitaries. Masters of ceremonies direct him and proclaim 
in a loud voice every act he has to perform. In a hymn, 
chanted by voices and accompanied by instrumental music, 
the Spirit of Heaven is implored to descend into the tablet 
which has been prepared for his reception. Before this 
tablet, and afterwards before the tablets of his ancestors, the 
Emperor offers incense, jade, silk, broth, and rice spirits. 
He humbly kneels and knocks his forehead several times 
against the marble pavement. A grandee intones a statut- 
able prayer in a loud voice, and on the second terrace several 
officials, appointed for the purpose, offer incense, silk, and 
wine before the tablets of the Sun, Moon, Stars, Clouds, 
Rain, Wind, and Thunder. Finally, the sacrificial offerings 
are carried away, thrown into furnaces and burned. So 
ends what has been described as the most pompous worship 
ever paid on earth to a divinity of nature. It is attended 
by a crowd of musicians and religious dancers, who by their 
sweet strains and graceful posturing lend variety and charm 
to the pageant.’ 

Another In the same vast park at Peking there stands, farther to 

ope. the north, another altar of the same form but of lesser 

presenting dimensions. It supports a large circular edifice with a dome 

eather or cupola, being the only building of this shape and size in 
China. It represents the vault of the celestial sphere. In this 


1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Neligion above the other, is given in 7he Neview 
of the Chinese, pp. 103-106. A good of Aeviews, No. 419, December 15th, 
view of the great Altar of Heaven, 1924, p. 505. 
rising in its triple circular terraces one 


IV THE WORSAIP OF THE ISK Y IN’ CHINA 79 


dome prayers are put up for a happy year, that is, for a good 
harvest throughout the empire. Here, too, year by year, in 
the first decade of the first month, the Emperor offers a 
great sacrifice to Heaven and his ancestors. And in the 
first month of summer, to obtain seasonable rains for the 
crops, a Sacrifice is presented in the same building to Heaven 
and the ancestors of the Emperor, also to Rain, Thunder, 
Clouds, and Winds, all represented by their tablets. If 
rain does not fall in due time, the sacrifice is repeated. 
These sacrifices are usually performed by princes, grandees, 
or ministers, as proxies for the Son of Heaven.’ 


In time of drought, when the crops were perishing for The 


lack of rain and the people were afflicted with famine, the 


Emperor's 


remon- 


Emperor remonstrated with Heaven, his ancestors, and the strances 


with 


spirits generally on their unfeeling and ungrateful conduct peaven in 


in plunging the whole kingdom in misery after all the 
sacrifices that had been offered to them. Thus in the 
Shih King or Povk of Poetry, one of the most ancient of 
the Chinese classics, we read the following plaint of a king 
in time of severe drought : 

“Bright was the milky way, shining and reyolving in 
the sky.. The king said, ‘Oh! What crime is chargeable on 
us now, that Heaven sends down death and disorder? 
Famine comes again and again. There is no spirit I have 
not sacrificed to; there is no victim I have grudged ; our 
jade symbols, oblong and round, are exhausted ;* how is 
it that I am not heard? The drought is excessive; its 
fervours become more and more tormenting. I have not 
ceased offering pure sacrifices; from the border altars (of 
Heaven and Earth) I have gone to the ancestral temple.’ 
To the powers above and below (Heaven and Earth) I have 
presented my offerings and then buried them; there is no 
spirit whom I have not honoured. . .. This wasting and 
ruin of our country—would that it fell (only) on me! 

“<The drought is excessive, and I may not try to excuse 

1 J. J. M. de Groot, Zhe Religion 3 <¢ By ‘the border altars’ we are 


of the Chinese, pp. 106 sq. to understand the altars in the suburbs 
of the capital, where Heaven and 


tine of 


drought. 


2 These symbols were used at sacri- Earth were sacrificed to—the great 
fices: they were of different shapes and __ services at the solstices, and any other 
colours. seasons” (J. Legge). 

_, JUN 22 
we, 


> 
A 
NGA 


The wor- 
ship of the 
Sky among 
the Lo-lo 
p'o of 
Southern 
China. 


80 WORSHIP OF (SIGYCIN LH EAI EAST CHAP. 


myself. Iam full of terror and feel the peril, like the clap 
of thunder or the roll. . . . Among the black-haired people * 
there will not be halt a man left; nor will God from his 
great heaven exempt (even) me. Shall we not mingle our 
fears together? (The sacrifices to) my ancestors will be 
extinguished. 

“The drought is excessive, and it cannot be stopped. 
More fierce and fiery, it is leaving me no place. My end is 
near ; I have none to look up, none to look round, to. The 
many dukes and their ministers of the past give me no 
help.” O ye parents and (nearer) ancestors, how can ye 
bear to see me thus? 

“«The drought is excessive; parched are the hills, and 
the streams are dried. The demon of drought exercises his 
oppression, as if scattering flames and fire. My heart is _ 
terrified with the heat ; my sorrowing heart is as if on fire. 
The many dukes and their ministers of the past do not hear 
me. O God, from thy great heaven, grant me the liberty 
to withdraw (into retirement).’” ° 

In short, deserted by God and even by dukes, who 
either could not or would not comply with his request for 
rain, the monarch in despair thought of abdicating and so 
making room for a successor, who might wring from reluctant 
Heaven and the deceased nobility those showers of which 
the parched earth stood so sorely in need and of which these 
august personages are notoriously the only dispensers. 


The Lo-lo p’o are an aboriginal tribe of Yunnan, a 
province of Southern China. Their religion consists in 
honouring the Sky and venerating their deceased kinsfolk. 
The Catholic missionary who reports their creed was at 
some pains to ascertain what they meant by the Sky which 
they honour. Is it simply the blue vault of heaven? Is it 
a Higher Being, a Great Spirit? Or is it some combination 
of the two? To these questions he could elicit no satis- 
factory answer. The natives, he tells us, either do not raise 
such questions at all, or, if they do, the result of their 

1 That is, the Chinese. . 3 The Shth King, Decade iii. Ode 4, 
2 The king had sacrificed to the translated by James Legge, Sacred 


spirits of all the early lords and their Books of the East, vol. iii. (Oxford, 
ministers, but in vain. 1879), pp. 419-422. 


IV DHEAVOKRSAITP OR THE’ SEY IN CHINA 81 


reflections is far from lucid; and an examination. of the 
popular expressions applied to the sky does not resolve the 
ambiguity, for while some of them admit of a spiritual, 
others on the contrary favour a purely materialistic interpre- 
tation. If the more intelligent of the people are questioned 
on the subject, they reply that the Sky ((7eu-nyt mo) which 
they adore is the same as the God of the Christians. If, on 
the other hand, the question is put to the less intelligent 
members of the tribe, “ What is that Sky which you adore?” 
they answer, “ Why, it is just the Sky.” But if you insist 
in asking, “ But after all what do you understand by the 
Sky ?” they cut you short by replying, “We do not know”.’ 
The same question put to any primitive people concerning 
their Sky-god would probably elicit the same or a similar 
answer. Whether the distinction between the material and 
the spiritual is sound or not, it is one that has been reached 
by civilized peoples after a long period of reflection and 
discussion, and it is much too abstract to be understood by 
simple folk who have never troubled themselves about such 
metaphysical subtleties. For them the Sky is the Sky, and The Sky 
if they invest it with personal qualities, as they do, they "&"¢°¢ 


as a Father 
merely follow the impulse of the childlike tendency to and the 


personify the whole realm of nature. Thus the Lo-lo p’o edna. 
regard the sky as the father of mortals; he is often called 
Father Sky (Jeu-nyz-mo a-bo). Similarly, they sometimes 
speak of the earth (J/7-d0u-do) as Mother Earth (1/7-b0u-do 
a-mo); and they often say, “ The Sky is our father, the Earth 
is our mother” Yet apparently they do not look upon Sky 
and Earth as husband and wife. Questioned on this 
subject, they say, “The Earth is called Mother because the 
Sky, which is our Father, covers it and protects it”.? They 
think that the Sky created man and things for his use. 
You may hear them saying, “Men cannot make things of 
that sort; it is the Sky that made them”; or again, “ It 
was the Sky that made the earth”. Again, they appear to 
conceive of the Sky as omniscient. They will say, for 
example, “Men cannot know such and such a thing; the 
Sky (Meu-nyi-mo) knows it”; or again, “We must not do 

1 A. Liétard, du Yun-nan, Les Lo-lo 2 A. Liétard, Au YVun-nan, Les 
fo (Miinster-i.-W., 1913), pp. 127 sg. Lo-lo po, p. 129. 

VOL I G 


Offering to 
the Sky on 


the first day 


of the year. 


Siang- 
tiei, the 
Supreme 
God, 
commonly 
identified 
with the 
Sky. 


82 WORSHIP OF SKY IN THE FAR EAST _ CHAP, 


evil, the Sky would not look on us with favour”. Some- 
times, instead of speaking simply of the Sky, they say “The 
Master of the Sky”. In short, they appear to use the name 
for Sky in a sense nearly equivalent to God; so at least, 
Father Liétard, our authority on the tribe, translates the 
word.’ 

On the first day of the year the head of a Lo-lo p’o 
family presents an offering to the Sky. A bowl of rice and 
a piece of meat are set on a tray, and holding the tray in 
his hands the householder steps to the threshold of the door, 
makes three deep obeisances, and lifts the tray towards the 
sky. That ends the simple ceremony. Afterwards the rice 
and meat are consumed by the family,; so that the Sky gets 
nothing, unless indeed, it be the spiritual essence of the 
food, for on that meagre diet many divinities are forced 
to subsist. 


§ 2. The Worship of the Sky in Corea 


In Corea, as in China, the popular religion is the 
worship of ancestors, but with this is conjoined a conception 
more or less vague of a great deity named Siang-tiei, whom 
most people identify with the sky. His name is clearly the 
same with Shang-ti, which, in the sense of Supreme Emperor, 
is the name commonly bestowed on the Sky-god by the 
Chinese.’ The missionaries have often questioned highly 
educated Coreans as to the meaning which they attach to 
the word Siang-tiei, but without ever obtaining a clear and 
precise answer. Some Coreans believe that the name 
designates the Supreme Being, the creator and preserver 
of the world; others maintain that it is simply and solely 
the sky, to which they attribute a providential power of pro- 
ducing, preserving, and ripening the crops, banishing sick- 
ness, and so forth; but most people confess that they know — 
nothing and do not trouble themselves about it. When 
public sacrifices are offered for rain or fine weather, or for 
deliverance from plague, the prayers are addressed either — 

1 A. Liétard, of. .c¢#t.. p. 128 sg. 2 A. Liétard, of. c7t. p. 128. 


He translates J/eu-nyi-mo sometimes 
as ‘*le Ciel” and sometimes as ‘‘ Dieu”. 3 See above, p. 74. 


IV LHE WORSHIP: OF THE SKY IN COREA 83 


to the Supreme Being or to the Sky, according to the 
text of the programme drawn up by the mandarin who 
arranges the ceremony.’ 

Such sacrifices are not very frequent. But when districts 
or provinces suffer from drought, the government issues an 
order to the mandarins, and each of them, on the day 
appointed, betakes himself to the place set apart for the 
ceremony. Attended by his suite, his guards, and _ his 
satellites, he there awaits patiently the favourable moment 
without eating or drinking, or even smoking to beguile the 
weary hours. The lucky time is usually towards midnight ; 
in any case the mandarin may not return hame till after 
midnight is passed. At the exact moment he sacrifices 
pigs, sheep, and goats, and offers the raw flesh and blood 
to the deity. On the morrow he rests from his labours, 
but only to begin them again the day after, and so it goes 
on alternately every other day till rain falls. In the capital 
the mandarins relieve each other, so that the sacrifices take 
place every day. If after two or three sacrifices the Supreme 
Being or the Sky (whichever of them happens to be down 
on the programme) turns a deaf ear to the prayer and a 
blind eye to the sacrifice, the place of sacrifice is shifted, 
and they try again. The various places, where the deity 
is offered raw pork, mutton, and goat’s flesh as an induce- 
ment to send rain, are determined by ancient custom. But 
if, after all, no result is obtained, the mandarins are replaced 
by Cabinet Ministers, who officiate in their stead. But if 
neither mandarins nor Cabinet Ministers can extract a drop 
of rain from the deity, recourse is had, as a last resort, to 
the king, and he comes in great state to offer the sacrifices 
and to procure the salvation of his people. When rain at 
last falls, as it always does, sooner or later, neither the 
sacrificer nor the persons of his suite may take shelter from 
the downpour; they must wait till midnight before they 
return home. The whole crowd of spectators follows their 
example, for they think that it would be an insult to the 
Sky if they sought to avoid the rain, the object of such 
earnest desires and prayers. Should anybody be so forgetful 
of common decency as to put on his hat or open his umbrella, 

1 Ch. Dallet, Historre de l’ Eglise de Corée (Paris, 1874), i. pp. cxxxviii sg. 


Sacrifices 
to the 
Supreme 
Being or 
the Sky in 
time of 
drought. 


Rewards 
for the 
mandarin 
who pro- 
cures rain. 


Sacrifices 
for fine 
weather at 
Seoul, 


Sacrifices 
in time of 
public 
calamity. 


84 WORSHIP OF SKY IN JHE FAR LAST. CHAP, 


the angry crowd would knock his hat off his head, smash 
his umbrella, and:overwhelm him under a shower of blows 
and curses.’ 

A mandarin whose sacrifice has been followed by rain 
is regarded as the saviour of his country; the king rewards 
him by giving him promotion or a valuable present. In 
the nineteenth century a mandarin of the capital who dared 
to offer the sacrifice before the prescribed hour was im- 
mediately dismissed from office. But that very night rain 
began to fall ; so the degraded magistrate was restored to his 
dignity and shared the reward with his brother mandarin, 
who officiated the next day, and who had the good fortune 
to be drenched with rain in the very act of sacrificing. On 
both of them the king bestowed a deerskin, which was 
carried to their respective abodes with all possible pomp 
and ceremony.” 

At Seoul, the capital of Corea, sacrifices to procure fine 
weather are offered at the great South Gate. The hour is 
the same, the sacrificer observes the same rules of abstinence, 
and so long as the sacrifices continue the gate is shut day 
and night, and all traffic is stopped. Sometimes, too, on 
such occasions it is forbidden to carry the dead out to burial. 
If at these times undertakers attempt to conduct funerals, 
whether in ignorance of the edict, or in the hope of evading 
it, or because the date of the obsequies has been fixed by 
the diviners and cannot be postponed, they are inexorably 
stopped at the gates of the city ; and as they cannot return 
home before the burial, they and the coffins which they are 
carrying are obliged to remain out in the rain, often for 
several days, till with the return of fine weather the embargo 
on funerals has been rescinded, and the dead are suffered 
peaceably to repair to their long homes.° 

Sometimes in great calamities, as when cholera is raging, 
individuals club together or collect money to defray the 
expense of numerous sacrifices, and the king for his part 
essays to appease the wrath of Heaven by granting partial 
or general amnesties.* 


1 Ch. Dallet, Histoire de l’Eglise de 3 Ch. Dallet, Histoire de 1’ Eglise de 
Cordes lictip CXXRIX. 57. : Corde, lic, 

2 Ch. Dallet, Avstotre de PEglise de 4 Ch. Dallet, A7stoire de VE glise de 
Coreen t apex. Corte. 1.0, 


IV LEW ORSAIP; OF THE SKY IN ANNA A 85 


§ 3. Lhe Worship of the Sky in Annam. 


In Annam, as in China, the sky (¢vo7Z) is personified as In Annam 
an intelligent, wise, and on the whole beneficent deity. The aes 
personification transpires clearly in such popular expressions asawiseand 
as “Mr. Sky” and “Mr. Blue Sky” or “Grandfather Sky ”, See, 
“Grandfather Blue Sky”; for the title Mr. or Monsieur (ong) deity. 
means literally “ grandfather”, though it is applied in a com- 
plimentary sense to any person for whom the speaker 
entertains respect. Sometimes in common speech the noun 
“sky” is omitted, while the personification remains. Thus 
you may hear people say, “ Grandfather is raining ”, Grand- 
father is causing a flood”, “If Grandfather goes on like that 
we shall lose the harvest”.’ But to the mind of the 
Annamites the sky (¢voz) is much more than the personified 
cause of atmospheric phenomena. It occupies towards 
mankind the position of an overruling Providence. It is the 
_ cause of all that happens here on earth. They say, “ Life 


and death are in the power of Heaven” (¢vvz); “Good and 


bad fortune are in the power of Heaven”; “Riches and 
honours, want and plenty depend on Heaven”; “It is the 
will of Heaven.” It is Heaven, too, that sends the wasting 


sicknesses which spread havoc among the people; cholera 
Gmepiacieuiss bieavens evil. (azck. ¢roz).. Yet Heaven, is 
also beneficent and compassionate. Men appeal to it in 
time of trouble. Thousands of times every day the cry 
goes up from the unfortunate and unhappy in Annam to 
a just, a pitiful Heaven; “O Heaven (zvoz 627/)” is the 
simple appeal; according to the circumstances and feelings 
of the speaker it is a cry of supplication, of suffering, of 
discouragement, of astonishment, or of indignation. Some- 
times, in their despair, men blaspheme Heaven, rendering it 
responsible for the evils that befall them: hence there is 
“a sin against heaven” (Pham trot); and they say that 
“Heaven punishes” (¢roz phat). But in calmer moments 
men appeal to Heaven as to a wise and just judge. They 
say, “Heaven knows” (érvoz d2ét), “Heaven judges” (¢roz 
xet), meaning, “ Heaven sees what I do, he hears what I 


1 L. Cadiére, ‘Philosophie populaire annamite,” Azthropos, ii. (1907) pp. 
118-120; P. Giran, -Wagie et Religion Annamites (Paris, 1912), pp. 262 sq. 


86 WORSHIP OR SKVAN TAL FAK LAS CHAP. — 


say; he is my witness that I speak the truth, that I am 
innocent ; he will not leave unpunished the wrong that is 
done me”. And it is to this great Celestial Being, who 
made man and watched over him during his.Jife on earth, 
that man returns--after death ;. to die is “to return’ to 
Heaven” (vé troz). Thus on the whole the physical. sky 
(troz) is personified by the Annamites as a wise, good, just 
and omniscient being, in short, as a high god.’ 

Theological But if the people are asked whether this great deity, 

subtieues this overruling Providence, is distinct from the material 


concerning 


the divine heaven, the blue vault that they see above their heads, they 
nature e ° 
eschewed Cannot answer. Either they have never put the question to 


by the themselves, or, if they have, they have kept to themselves 


le. : A 
pions the fruit of their reflections.” It is the old, old riddle, and 
how can we expect that Annam should find the answer? 
“ Furth could not answer: nor the Seas that mourn 
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn ; 
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal’d 
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn, 
The Sky- But with such unprofitable subtleties the great mass of 
Bod called mankind in Annam, as elsewhere, do not concern themselves. 


Emperor To their thinking the sky is a god, and that is an end of it. 
or Jade: he About his personality there is no manner of doubt. They 


bya call him Ngoc Hoang, that is, the Emperor of Jade. He 
secretaries, dWells in the midst of heaven and is the supreme ruler of the 
whoarethe universe. The sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the 
Northern ; ze, ; . 
Foe thunder, the rain, the spirits of the mountains, of the rivers, 
pein i and of the forests are all subject to him. It was he who 
sent to mankind the three great emperors Phuc y, Than 
nong, and Hien vien, who taught the human race to till the 
ground and to clothe their nakedness. But the Emperor of 
Jade does not dwell in lone splendour above the clouds. He 
is surrounded by a regular court, and in the despatch of all 
business concerning mankind he is assisted by two Secretaries 
of State, who are no other than the Northern Star and the 
Southern Star. It is the duty of these functionaries to 
superintend and register all things, good and bad, that affect 
1 L. Cadiére, * Philosophie populaire 2 L. Cadiére, ‘‘ Philosophie populaire 
annarhite,” Axthropos, ii. (1907) pp. annamite,’” <Azthrofos, ii. (1907) p. 
I2I sg. Bey & 


IV THE WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN ANNAM 87 


the welfare of humanity. But while the Southern Star keeps 
his eye on the living and records all their doings, of which 
they will have to render an account after death, the Northern 
Star is lord of the dead; he it is who regulates their punish- 
ment, increasing, mitigating, or suspending it at his dis- 
cretion ; and it is to him that, a few days before the end of 
the year, the Spirit of the Kitchen makes his annual report 
on all that, as Guardian of the Hearth, he has seen and 
heard in the house during the past year. In popular art 
the Emperor of Jade is represented clad in a robe of 
imperial yellow, sitting on a throne amid clouds, and holding 
an ivory sceptre in his clasped hands. On either side of him 
stand, at the foot of the throne, the two Secretaries of State, 
each with the emblems of his office, to wit, a register and a 
paint-brush or pencil wherewith to make the entries in the 
judgment roll. The image or statue of the deity is to be 
seen in many temples, yet he receives no special worship ; no 
- ceremonies are performed and no festivals held in his honour, 
such as are performed and held in honour of the Sun and 
Moon.’ 

The Emperor of Jade is a father; he has sons and The descent 
daughters. Among the daughters the most celebrated is the a a 
goddess Liéu Hanh.” One day when her father had invited daughter to 
a select party of gods to dinner, she was so awkward as to rtd 
break a valuable vase, and for this fault she was banished 
by her stern sire to earth. There she became a princess in 
the royal family of the Lés and married a young official 
named Dao Lang. But after three years she died. When 
her husband opened the coffin to take a last look at his dead 
wife the body had vanished. The goddess had resumed the 
likeness of a young damsel, and in that form now roamed the 
forests, making the woods echo to her songs and the music 
of the harp. There her husband, who was inconsolable for 
his loss, had the good fortune to fall in with her and to 
_ recognize her with the help of a very elegant poem which 
she had carved on the bark of a tree. They married again 
and lived long years together without ever wearying of 
their love. Her husband devoted himself to the pursuit 


1 PP, Giran, Magie et Religion An- Anmnamites (Paris, 1906), pp. 219 sg. 
namites, pp. 262-264; E. Diguet, Les *_P. Giran, of. cit, p. 264. 


88 WORSHIP OF SKVINGLAE TA Ken AS CHAP. IV 


of literature, graduated with distinction at the university, and 
rose tobe a high mandarin. Their marriage was blessed with 
a son. One day—one melancholy day—while they were 
joyously discussing his future career, they were surprised by 
a strain of sweet and solemn music which seemed to proceed 
from the sky. A shudder thrilled the wife: she started up 
and said to her husband, “ We must part, my darling. Thou 
art Dao Lang and Iam the goddess Liéu Hanh. My father, 
the Emperor of Jade, is calling me to himself. Farewell.” 
She vanished, this time to return no more, and he was left 
lamenting.’ 


1E. Diguet, Les Annamites, pp. 225-227; compare P. Giran, of. cé?. 
p. 264. 


Ce ao asa 
WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA 


§ 1. Worship of the Sky in Western Africa 


THUS far we have discussed the worship of the Sky as it The — 
has existed among the civilized peoples of antiquity and ofniaeue Bt 
modern times. But that worship is by no means confined common in 
to civilized nations; it occurs also commonly enough in PEAboae 
savage and barbarous tribes. Nor is this surprising. When tribes. 
we remember that the religious veneration of the Sky is 
based on a simple personification of the visible firmament, 
in other words, on an attribution to it of qualities and 
powers like those of man in kind, though higher in degree, we 
shall probably be less astonished that so crude a philosophy 
should commend itself to primitive folk than that it should 
so long have survived among peoples at a higher level of 
culture. 

I do not propose to ransack the whole annals of savagery The 
and barbarism in search of sky-gods; to do so would tax een oh 
too far the patience of my hearers and exceed the time at well 
my disposal. There is the less need for me to dwell at Ceiope¢ 
length on the topic because the whole of this wide field has 
already been surveyed and mapped by Professor Pettazzoni 
in the learned work to which I have already referred.’ For 
my purpose it will suffice to select as examples of this 
particular phase of religion the beliefs and practices of a 
single race, or rather group of races, to wit, the black peoples 
of Africa, among whom the personification and worship of 

1 R, Pettazzoni, Dio, vol. i. L’ Essere Celeste nelle Credenze dei Popoli Primitivi 
(Rome, 1922). 

89 


The 
worship of 
the Sky 
among the 
tribes of 
Upper 
Senegal. 


The 
worship of 
the Sky 
among the 
Nunumas, 


go WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


the Sky are particularly well developed. We begin with the 
tribes of Western Africa. 

The worship of the Sky appears to be common to all 
the negroes of Western Africa, but among many of them it 
is cast into the shade by the worship of the Earth and of 
the Forest. This, for example, is true of the Bobos, a tribe 
of Upper Senegal or the French Sudan, who occupy a 
territory in the valley of the Niger to the north of the Ivory 
Coast... But among the Sankuras, a branch of the Bobos, 
who have been influenced by Mohammedanism, the Sky- 
god has regained some of his original importance because 
his worshippers have identified him with Allah. Still, even 
among them the Sky has to yield precedence to the Earth 
and the Forest.2 Again, among the Nunumas, another 
tribe of the. same region, the two great deities are still the 
Earth and the Forest, but the people also revere the Sky or 
the Good God, as they call him, and they offer sacrifices to 
him when the diviner orders them to do so. At his bidding 
they ascend one of the terraces of their large family dwell-, 
ings (szkalas), which are built of beaten earth and in their 
massive proportions often present the appearance of lofty 
rectangular fortresses rather than of houses. There, on the 
terrace, they cut the throat of a fowl, throw it in the air, 
and watch it, as it flutters and flaps its wings in the agony 
of death. If it expires on its back, the omen is good: 
Heaven has accepted the sacrifice. But if the bird does not 
die on its back, it is a sign that Heaven is displeased and 
rejects the offering. In that case the sacrifices must be 
continued till a victim yields up its life in the required 
position.? The worship of the dead forms an important 
element in the religion of the Nunumas; for the souls of 
ancestors are supposed to dwell under ground and to cause 
the growth of vegetation, particularly of the grain; hence 


-at the time of sowing the seed the head of a family always 


sacrifices to the ancestral spirits either at their graves or at 
the little huts dedicated to them.* Now it is noteworthy 


1 L, Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan p. 195. Throughout this discussion 


(Paris, 1912), p. 74. I use Heaven and Sky as equivalent 
2 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, terms. 
Desa: 4 L. Tauxier, Ze Noir du Soudan, 


3 
3 L. Tauxier, Le Notr du Soudan, pp. 189 s¢. 


a — 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA gI 


that in this tribe the Sky-god is always invoked along with 
the ancestral spirits.) On the terraces of their houses the 
people sometimes erect huge pointed cones of beaten earth 
in honour either of the ancestors or of the Sky. Further, 
the Nunumas, like other négroes, associate the worship of 
certain pebbles with the worship of the Sky. When the 
head of a family finds in the forest a pebble which attracts 
his attention by its colour, or beauty, or curious shape, 
he picks it up and takes it home. There he constructs a 
cone of beaten earth, some three feet high at most, and 
sets the pebble on the top of it, and offers sacrifices to 
it, saying that it is the Good God himself, or at all events 
a fetish which the Good God has bestowed on_ him. 
This is natural enough, for in the belief of the blacks these 
pebbles have fallen from the Sky, and are in fact fragments 
of that great divinity.’ 

The Kassunas Fras, another negro people of the same The 
region, to the north of the Gold Coast, similarly offer ea Sie pt 
sacrifices to the Sky on the terraces of their houses, among the 
especially when they are about to set out on a journey. ,¢2""* 
They also in like manner worship certain pebbles as frag- 
ments of the divine Sky, from which they are supposed to 
have fallen. When a man finds one of these pebbles he 
constructs a cone of beaten earth in front of the door of his 
house, places the pebble on the top of it, and from time to 
time sacrifices fowls or goats to it. This he usually does in 
obedience to the injunction of a diviner.* But with them, 
as with other tribes of these parts, the worship of the Sky 
appears to be overshadowed hy the worship of the Earth 
and of the ancestral spirits. Even when rain is wanted, it 
is not to the Sky but to the Earth and the Ancestors that 
the Kassunas Fras, like the Nunumas, offer sacrifices in 
order to elicit showers from the brazen heaven.* 

Again, the Nankanas, another tribe of the same region, The | 
revere the Easth and the Forest as their great deities, but Sean of 
they also pay their devotions to the Sky, who, however, is among the 


< Nankanas. 
not so universally feared and respected as the Earth. At 
1 L. Tauxier, Le NMotr du Soudan, 3 1. Tauxier, Ze Motr du Soudan, 
D105. p. 238. ' ; 
2 L. Tauxier, Ze NMotr du Soudai, 4 LL. Tauxier, Le Moir du Soudan, 


pp. 195 sg. pp- 196 sg., 241 59. 


The 
worship of 
the Sky 
among the 
Kassunas- 
Buras. 


The 
worship of 
the Sky 
among the 
Mossi and 
Samos. 


g2 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


Zeko the French official, M. Louis Tauxier, to whom we 
owe a valuable account of these tribes, was told by the 
people whom he questioned that everybody believed in the 
Earth, but that not everybody believed in the Sky. How- 
ever, the chief of Zeko, to do him justice, was not one of 
these sceptics. Like the pious man he was, he believed in 
the Sky, and from time to time in the courtyard of his 
house he sacrificed fowls, sheep, goats, and even oxen to the 
celestial deity. According to the worshippers of the Sky in 
this tribe, it is the Sky who bestows rain, and the Thunder 
and Lightning are his progeny.’ 

Again, the Kassunas-Buras, a tribe situated to the east 
of the preceding, similarly worship the Earth and the Forest 
as the prime divinities, but they also find a place in their 
pantheon for the Sky-god, who bears the name of We, 
while the sky itself is called kumkualu or kongkuanu: thus 
they distinguish between the firmament and the god who 
inhabits it. At the bidding of the diviner, they sacrifice 
fowls, millet flour, and so forth to We in order to procure 
many children and many wives. Anybody is free to offer 
such sacrifices, provided that he is instructed to do so by the 
seer. By extension they also give the name of We to the 
divine pebbles which they collect and treasure, because they 
believe them to have fallen from the sky. As for the 
lightning, it is the sword of the Good God, but they do not 
offer sacrifices to it. They believe that it strikes none but 
evildoers.” 

Among the Mossi of Yatenga, a district of Upper 
Senegal, the Sky-god ranks as the supreme deity. In 
theory he is more powerful even than the redoubtable Earth- 
god, aithough, unlike that great divinity, he does not busy 
himself with men, and never punishes them. Nevertheless 
everything is said to be ordered by him. He resides in the 
sky, and his name is Wende or Wennam.? The Samos of 
the same region sacrifice to the Sky, which they represent 
by balls of earth ; they call it /avé or léro.* 


1 T.. Tauxier, Ze Motr du Soudai, 3 L. Tauxier, Le Nor du Vatenga 
pp: 272.496 ( Paris, 19.27); pr139 7: 

2 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, 
p. 328. In French the god’s name is 4 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Yatenga, 
spelled Oue. p. 694. 


v WORSTHIESOPILTITIE SKY IINIWESTERN AERICA 93 


The Habés are an aboriginal people who inhabit a The Habés 
mountainous district of Upper Senegal within the great Bee 
bend of the Niger. Formerly they dwelt in the fertile sky called 
lowlands of the great Nigerian tableland ; but, driven thence See 
by the inroads of their foes the Peuls, they took refuge in the who sends 
mountains, and built their villages on steep slopes or on the ae 
summits of cliffs, where ever since they have bidden defiance 
to their enemies and preserved their ancient customs and 
heathen religion.’ They believe that the sky, which- they 
call aza-kala, is solid, and that there is a god of the sky, 
who sends the rain. They call him Ammaor Amba. They 
offer sacrifices to him on altars with three points, to which 
they give the same name as to the deity. On some of the 
cliffs may be seen a number of monoliths or menhirs, some 
six feet high, which are usually fixed in clefts of the rock 
and supported by stones at their base. These stones are ‘They offer 
altars of the kind Sky-god Amma or Amba, who bestows the Poo’ 
rain on mankind. No definite shape is ascribed to him, but him on 


he is supposed to dwell or to be embodied in the menhirs ; "vo . 
and he also resides in caves and piles of rocks. Sacrifices 
are offered to him at all times. When any one desires to 
obtain a favour of the deity, whether it be rain, or offspring, 
or an increase of worldly goods, he repairs alone to a menhir, 
sprinkles millet flour on it, and utters his prayer. If his 
prayer is granted, he must inform the High Priest (Aogoz) 
and the elders of the village. They assemble before the 
sacred stone, and in their presence the worshipper who has 
obtained his wish sacrifices a goat, a cock, and a hen, so that 
the blood drips on the menhir. The flesh of the victim 
is then shared among the persons present. Women are 
excluded from these sacrifices of thanksgiving. If the 
favoured mortal were to forget thus to testify his gratitude 
to the deity, Amba would take his revenge by sending great 
misfortunes upon him. The Habés believe that the Earth 
is the wife of Amba, because he fertilizes her every year 
with the rain ; the fruits which, thus fertilized, she brings to 
the birth are deemed the children of Amba.” 


1 R.. Arnaud, ‘* Notes sur .les 2, R. Arnaud, ‘‘ Notes sur les 
Montagnards Habé”, Revue a’Ethno- Montagnards Habé”, Nevue a’ Ethno- 
graphie et des Traditions populaires, graphie et des Traditions populaires, ii. 
il, (1921) pp. 241 sgg¢. (1921) pp. 255 sg. As to the High 


The 
worship of 
the Sky 
among the 
tribes inthe 
interior of 
the Ivory 
Coast. 


The 
worship of 
the Sky 
among the 
tribes inthe 
interior of 
the Gold 
Coast. 


94 WORSHIP. OF THE SKY IN AFRICA 


CHAP, 


The Kulangos, in the interior of the Ivory Coast, regard 
the sky, or rather the atmosphere (yego), as a great deity. 
We are told that like the other negroes of the Sudan they 
distinguish the firmament, which they believe to be solid, 
from the atmospheric phenomena, such as clouds, storm, 
rain, thunder and lightning, which take place beneath it; 
and it is these phenomena, and not the blue sky, which they 
deem divine. To this god of the sky, or rather of the 
atmosphere, they offer sacrifices when the diviners command 
them to do so; and it is he who sends the thunder, the 
lightning, and the wind.’ But the Earth is the great deity 
of the Kulangos. Other tribes in the interior of the Ivory 
Coast, such as the Abrons, the Gans, and the Deghas, deify 
the Sky and the Earth, and offer sacrifices to them.” The 
Guros in the interior of the Ivory Coast recognize the 
divinity of the atmospheric sky, but they do not sacrifice 
to it. However, when anybody has been struck by lightning, 
they sacrifice a fowl to the lightning in order to appease it. 
They believe that the polished stone axes of the neolithic 
period, which are found all over the Ivory Coast, were 
thrown down from the sky by the thunder, and they look 
upon them as divine. So they collect them and keep them 
in vessels of water. From time to time they bathe in the 
holy water, and offer fowls to the thunder-stones, that is, 
to the stone axes, trusting thereby to win their favour.® 

Among the tribes which inhabit the Northern Territories 
of the Gold Coast the worship of Sky and Earth prevails in 
forms which closely resemble those which we have found to 
be practised by the natives of Upper Senegal; nor is this 
surprising when we remember that the boundary between 
Senegal and the Gold Goast, in other words, between I*rench 
and British territory, is a purely arbitrary one, being drawn 


_ straight along the cleventh parallel of North latitude, with 


the result that the same tribes are impartially divided 


2 L. Tauxier, Le Morr du Bondoukot, 


353; 375; 379, 385, 407. 


Priest (Aogon), see zd, pp. 249 sgg., He 
is the religious and sacred chief of a PP. 


group of people; he is deemed to be 
something more than a man, and he has 
to observe many taboos, 

1 L. Tauxier, Le Notr du Bondoukou 


(Paris, 1921), pp. 175 sg. 


. Tauxier, Véeres Gouro et Gagou 
ae 1924), pp. 200, 248 ; compare 
Zd.5 Pp. 1395.08" to the™ Gagus, who 
similarly worship polished stone axes 
as thunder-stones. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA 95 


between the two different spheres of political influence. For 
example, the Nankana (or Nankanni) and the Kassuna 
Fras (or Kassena) inhabit both sides of the Franco-British 
boundary line.’ The tribes on the English side of the 
boundary have recently been described by Mr. A. W. 
Cardinall, and from his description I will borrow what he 
tells us about the worship of the Sky among these pcople. 
It will be seen that his account tallies with and confirms 
that of his I'rench colleague, M. Louis Tauxier, across the 
frontier. 

Among the tribes in the Northern Territories of the But these 
Gold Coast the principal form of worship is that of the cee 
Earth-gods, for of such deities there are many, and all have chietly the 
different names ;* each community reveres at least onc. Pardtcoas: 
Thus the natives appear not to have attained to the gencral 
conception of a single god of the whole earth; they conccive 
of a multitude of Earth-gods, each with his own particular 
-name and local habitat. But every one believes in a Beliefina 
Supreme Being, the creator of life and the moulder Oe 
destiny. The Nankanni call him Wuni; the Kassena call called We, 
him We; and the Builsa call him Weni. His power is ee “ 
boundless, and he has pre-ordained everything. No 
definite shape is ascribed to him, but he apparently lives 
in the sky, or sometimes is identical with the sky or with the 
sun. He stands alone, and for the most part is not to be 
approached by mere mortals.* Yet at the same time we 
are told that “the sky itself—or maybe the Creator—has a 
private worship paid to it. All are at liberty to offer to the 
sky, and in most, but by no means all, houses one will sec 
on the roof of one of the huts a small pyramid of sun-baked 
mud on the summit of which is a small stone—- usually a 
cast-away hand-grinder. This is the sacrificial place for 
We.” Among these tribes, moreover, as among some of Worship of 
the tribes of Upper Senegal, the worship of certain stones 7” ements 
is confused or blent with the worship of the sky. Stone which are 
implements abound everywhere, and are supposed by the abe 
natives to have come from God, or the sky, or the rain. A nin the 

1 A. W. Cardinall, 7he Natives of 3 A. W. Cardinall, of. czt. p. 16. ; 
the Northern Territortes of the Gold * A. W. Cardinall, of. cit. pp. 22, 26. 


Coast (London, N.D.), pp. vii, I. 
2 A. W. Cardinall, of. czt. p. 24. 5 A. W. Cardinall, of. ct. pp. 23 59. 


Why the 
Sky is so 
far away. 


Supreme 
importance 
of the 
worship of 
ancestors 
among 
these 

tribes, 


The Tshi- 
speaking 
peoples 
and their 
country. 


96 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


man will pick,up and treasure any curiously-shaped stone, 
and if good luck-should afterwards attend him, he may, in 
consultation with the sorcerers, conclude that he owes his 
prosperity to the stone; and thus in course of time the stone 
may acquire great. renown.’ 

To explain why the sky is so far away the Kassena say 
that in the beginning the sky was so close to the ground 
that it was in the way of an old woman who was about to 
cook. In a rage she cut a slice off the sky and made it 
into soup. At this indignity the Sky was so vexed that he 
went away to the place which he occupies to the present 
day. Similarly the Ashantis tell how in days of old the 
sky was so near the earth that a woman who was pounding 
yams hit it continually with her pestle. This was more 


than the Sky could stand, and he withdrew out of her reach.’ . 


Almost exactly the same story is told by the Kpelle, a negro 
tribe of Liberia.® 

But among these tribes, while the worship of the Earth- 
gods is the most important for the community, that of 
ancestors is by far the most important for the individual. 
A religious man will do nothing without a sacrifice of some 
sort, generally a fowl, to his ancestors. In every courtyard 
may be seen the mound that stands for the founder’s grave, 
and outside of it are little pyramids representing other 
deceased members. of the family. Each pyramid is capped 
with a stone, on which are laid blood and feathers from 
the sacrifices. And when a family migrates, earth from the 
pyramids is carried to the new abode, and there the sacrifices 
to the dead are offered as before.* 


To the south of the territory occupied by these tribes 


stretches the great extent of country inhabited by a race of 


true negroes, who speak dialects of a language known as the 
Tshi, Tshwi, or Twi. It is a land of countless small hills 
and low ranges, all covered by dense tropical forest. The 
climate is hot, oppressive, and in a high degree unfavourable 
to the physical and mental energies of man. The natives live 


lA. W.: Cardinall, of. 277; p. 23. Negerstamm in Liberia (Gottingen und 
2 A. W. Cardinall, of. czt. pp. 22 sg. Leipzig, 1921), p. 533. 
3D. Westermann, Die Kpelle, etn 4 A. W. Cardinall, of. czt. p. 45. 


—— 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA 97 


in insignificant villages and hamlets, built in small clearings 

of the forest ; communication is kept up by narrow paths 

cut through the jungle. With the exception of Coomassie 

(the capital of Ashanti) and Djuabin, there is no purely 
native assemblage of buildings which deserves the name of 
town. In such a country, where men live in small isolated 
communities, mere specks in a vast tract of almost impene- 
trable forest, ideas permeate but slowly; shut off from the 
outer world by their woods, and enervated by the deadly 
influence of the climate, the people have remained in a 
backward condition little, if at all, in advance of that in 
which they were discovered by the Portuguese navigators 

more than four hundred years ago.’ To the east of their 
country stretches, as far as the Benin River, the territory The Ewe- 
occupied by the Ewe-speaking and Yoruba-speaking peoples. SP!" 
All three languages-——the Tshi, the Ewe, and the Yoruba— Yoruba- 
belong to the same family of speech, and all three peoples goers 
appear to have sprung frorn a common stock. But they ° 
differ in the degree of culture they have reached as we 
proceed from west to east, the Tshis in the west being 

the most savage, and the Yorubas in the east being the 

most advanced, while between them the Ewes occupy an 
intermediate position in respect of culture as well as of 
locality. The more open and level country inhabited by the 

Ewes and the Yorubas, by facilitating communication, may 
partially account for their greater progress in the direction 

of civilization.” The religions of all three peoples conform 

to the same type, and they all entertain similar views as to 

the Sky-god, who stands at the head of their pantheon. The 

same may be said of the Gas, a kindred people who inhabit 

the Gold Coast immediately to the west of the Volta River. 

Their language (the Ga) belongs to the same family of speech, 

and their religious beliefs resemble very closely those of their 
neighbours the Tshis.° 


Among the Tshi-speaking peoples the Ashantis are by 


1 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, 7he Tshi-speaking The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the 


Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa 
(London, 1887), pp. 1-4. 

2 (Sir) A, B. Ellis, 7he Awe-speaking 
Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa 
(London, 1890), pp. v 5g., 8 57.3 7@., 

VOL. I 


Slave Coast of West Africa (London, 
1894), pp. 32 sg. 

3 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, 7e Ezwe-speaking 
Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, 
pp. Vv, vi. 

H 


WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


98 


Among the far the most powerful and the most famous. They regard 
Lae the Sky and the Earth as their two great deities.! But, 
god unlike the tribes of Upper Senegal, they rank the Sky above 
eect the Earth. He is indeed the greatest of their gods, the 
Nes Supreme Being.” His name in the Tshi language is Onyame, 
‘“the Shining One”, shortened into Nyame, or lengthened 
into Onyankopon or Nyankopon. These names are applied 
both to the deity and to the sky. The Tshi negro conceives 
of the visible sky as animated: the firmament is, as it were, 
the body, or at least the abode, of the deity, who is its soul. 
It is remarkable that the same name for the deity occurs in 


The same 
stare the languages of widely separated tribes of the Bantu stock 
known to in Western Africa. Thus in Dualla it is Nyambe, in the 
widely language of Angola it is Ndzambi or Nzambi, in Herero 
separated it is Ndyambi, and similar names occur in many inter- 
tribes. . 8 4 
mediate tongues.” In the language of the Gas of the 
Gold Coast the name both of the Sky and of the Sky-god 
is Nyonmo.* 
Miss The general character of this Sky-god, who under many 
pts names is worshipped by many tribes of Western Africa, has 
worship of been thus described by Miss Mary Kingsley: “No trace 
surgi of sun-worship have I ever found. The firmament is, I 
West believe, always the great indifferent and neglected god, 
Africa. 


the Nyan Kupon of the Tschwi, and the Anzambe, Nzam, 
etc., of the Bantu races. The African thinks this god 
has great power if he would only exert it, and when 
things go very badly with him, when the river rises 
higher than usual and sweeps away his home and his 
plantations; when the smallpox stalks through the land, and 
day and night the corpses float down the river past him, and 
he finds them jammed among his cances that are tied to the 
beach, and choking up his fish traps ; and then when at last 


1 R, S. Rattray, Ashanti (Oxford, 


1923), P- 214. 7 
2 R. S. Rattray, Ashantz, pp. 86, 
90 sg. 139 599. oy: 
3-J. G. Christaller, Décttonary of 


the Asante and Fante Language (Basel, 
1881), pp. 342 sg., 5.7. Onyame ; 7a., 
“‘ Negersagen von der Goldkiiste”, 
Zeitschrift fiir afrikanische Sprachen, 
i. (1887-1888) p. 49 note?. Com- 
pare (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe TZshz- 


speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of 
West Africa, pp. 24 sqgqg.; twd., The 

we-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast 
of West. Africa, pp. 36 sg); Ros. 
Rattray, Ashanti, pp. 48, 49, 86, 90 
$9.0 'S04) SIZT, 214 Sh) 17 oie 
Claridge, Wild Bush Tribes of Tropical 
Africa (London, 1922), pp. 268 sgq. 

4 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Yoruba- 
speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of 
West Africa, p. 35. 





Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA — 99 


the death-wail over its victims goes up night and day from 
his own village, he will rise up and call upon this great god 
in the terror maddened by despair, that he may hear and 
restrain the workings of these lesser devils.” ? 

“ The general bias of the negro mind ”, says Sir A. B. Ellis, 
“has been in favour of selecting the firmament for the chief 
Nature-god, instead of the Sun, Moon, or Earth; and in this 
respect the natives resemble the Aryan Hindus, Greeks, and 
Romans, with whom Dyaus pitar, Zeus, and Jupiter equally 
represented the firmament”.” “The Tshis and Gas use the 
words Nyankupon and Nyonmo to express sky, rain, or 
thunder and lightning, and the Ewes and Yorubas, the words 
Mawu and Olorun to express the two former. The Tshi 
people say Myankupon bom (Nyankupon knocks), ‘It is 
thundering’; Myankupon aba (Nyankupon has come), ‘ It is 
raining’; and the Ga peoples, ‘Nyanmo knocks (thunders),’ 
‘Nyanmo pours’, ‘Nyanmo drizzles’, etc., while in just the same 
way the Ancient Greeks ascribed these phenomena to Zeus, 
who snowed, rained, hailed, gathered clouds, and thundered. 
Nyankupon has for epithets the following : Aszosu (Giver of 
Rain); Amovua (Giver of Sunshine); TZetereboensu (Wide- 
spreading Creator of Water), and Zyaduampon, which seems 
to mean ‘Stretched-out Roof’ (Zyo, to draw or drag, dua, 
wood, and fon, flat surface).” ° | 

In the Ashanti language the rainbow is called literally 


1 Mary H. Kingsley, Zvavels 7 1921), pp. 214-216. According to 


West Africa (London, 1897), p. 508. 
Compare R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in 
West Africa (London, 1904), p. 36, 
who gives as different forms of the 
god’s name ‘* Anyambe, Anyambie, 
Njambi, Nzambi, Anzam, or, in other 
parts, Ukuku, Suku, and so forth”. 
And on this Sky-god in general, see 
R. Pettazzoni, Dzv, i. L’ Hssere Celeste 
nelle Credenze det Popolt Primitivi 
(Roma, 1922), pp. 234 sgg. Among 
the os, an important people of 
Southern Nigeria, the name of the 
Supreme God is Cuku or Chuku ; but 
he does not appear to be specially 
described as a Sky-god. See N. W. 
Thomas, Anthropological Report on 
the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria 
(London, 1913), i.265¢7.; G. T. Basden, 
Among the lbos of Nigeria (London, 


Mr. Basden (of, czt. p. 215), this god 
‘is believed to control all things in 
heaven and earth, and dispenses re- 
wards and punishments according to 
merit”. On the other hand, Mr. 
Thomas tells us (op, cz¢, p. 27) that 
“*Cuku appears to play a relatively 
unimportant part in the lives of the 
people. I have nowhere found any 
sacrifice to him.” Suku is the name 
for God also in the Ovimbundu tribe 
of Bihe in Angola. See D. Campbell, 
In the Heart of Bantuland (London, 
1922), p. 245. 

2 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Yoruéba- 
speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of 
West Africa, p. 35. 

3 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Yoruba- 
speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, 


Pp. 35-36 note. 


AL BEliis 
onthe West 
African 
worship of 
the Sky- 
god, 


Stone celts 
regarded 
by the 
Ashantis 
as the Sky- 
god's axes 
or hoes. 


"Nyame 
dwells in 
‘the sky, but 
concerns 
himself 
little with 
human 
affairs, 


100 WORSHIP (OLGTLL LES BOM ALIN WA Tel a CHAP. 


the Sky-god’s bow,’ and stone celts are named the Sky-god’s 
axes ('Vyame akuma) or the Sky-god’s hoes (Myame asoso). 
They are supposed to fall from the sky during thunder- 
storms and to bury themselves in the earth. The natives 
believe that, coming from the Sky-god ’Nyame, stone celts 
are endowed with some of the power of that great spirit. 
Hence they are constantly found as appurtenances of the 
inferior gods (avosom) and of charms (suman); hence, too, 
the medical virtue ascribed to them. To cure diseases they 
are sometimes fastened to the body of the sufferer, or they 
are ground down to a powder, which is given him to 
swallow. However, there are still alive in Ashanti old men 
who know that these stone celts were made by human hands, 
and that they were used by their ancestors not so long ago 
at a time when the smelting of iron was already practised.” 
When a tree is cleft by lightning, a common man will say 
that it has been split by the Sky-god’s axe.’ 

’Nyame, the Supreme Being of the Ashantis, is thought 
to dwell somewhat aloof in his firmament and to be too far 
away to concern himself directly with the affairs of man, 
but he has delegated some of his powers to his lieutenants, 
the lesser gods (abosvm), who act as his vice-gerents on 
earth. Yet there are beautifully designed temples of the 
Sky-god hidden away in remote corners of the older palaces, 
and these temples are served by priests. Moreover, almost 
every courtyard in Ashanti contains an altar of the Sky-god 
in the shape of a forked branch cut from a certain tree which 


Altarsofthe the Ashantis call the Sky-god’s tree (Myame dua). Between 


Sky-god in 


the shape of 


forked 
branches. 


the branches, which are cut short, is fixed a basin or a pot ; 
in this receptacle the offerings are placed, and in it is 
generally to be found a neolithic celt, one of the Sky-god’s 
axes. These rude altars of the Sky-god are frequently 
represented on ancient Ashanti weights.° On one such 
weight, for example, we see a man offering a fowl at one of 
these altars, while two eggs are shown lying in. the basin 
on the top of the forked pole.° Mashed yams are sometimes 
thrown on the roof of the house as an offering to the Sky- 


1 R. S. Rattray, Ashantz, p. 174. 5 R. S. Rattray, Ashant?, p. 142, 
2 R.S. Rattray, Ashantz, pp. 322 5g. with the plate compare p. 51. 
3 R. S. Rattray, Ashantz, p. 176. 6 R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, p. 312, 


4 R.S. Rattray, Ashantz, pp.86,141. with Fig. 125 facing p. 310. 


Vv iW Oho ide te EY INVEST ERIN APRICA “101 


god and to the spirits of the Earth.’ When a drummer is 

about to beat a drum for the first time on a particular day, 

he pours some drops of wine on the drum and calls upon the 

gods of the Sky and the Earth and many other deities to 
drink? In prayers the Sky-god is addressed as “He upon Oaths by 
whom men lean and do not fall”. When an under-chief sey Bs 
swore fealty to his liege lord, a sword was given him, and he Farth. 
turned the point of it first to the sky and then to the earth. 
Thereupon he bent his head, and while the great chief 
placed his left foot on it, the subject prayed that the gods 

of the Sky and the Earth might catch him, if ever he should 

turn traitor to his lord.* . We have seen that in like manner 

the ancient Greeks swore by Sky and Earth.’ 

A popular myth, known from one:end of Ashanti to the Rivers, 
other, relates that Nyame, the Sky-god, had various sons, i°°"4 
of whom one was a favourite, and that he sent them down regardedas 

‘ sons of the 
to earth to receive benefits from, and to confer them upon, sky.goa. 
mankind. All these sons bore the names of what are now 
waters, whether rivers, lakes, or the sea. Thus it would 
seem that in Ashanti waters are looked upon as emanations 
of the Sky-god and as containing, in greater or less degree, 
the spirit or virtue of the divine Creator.° Grandmother 
Asiama, the traditionary foundress and first ruler of the 
Beretuo clan, is said to have come from the Sky-god ;’ and 
that great deity is reported to have sent down a python and 
a dove, which are the respective totems of two other Ashanti 
clans.® : | 

One of our best authorities on the religion of these ‘The Sky- 
people, the late Sir A. B. Ellis, was formerly of opinion that 8° °°... 
their Sky-god, whom he calls Nana-Nyankupon, “the Lord African 
of the Sky ”, was borrowed by them from the Christians and Sia the 
was in fact little more than Jehovah under a new name and ret 

. ° : ae borrowed 
a thin disguise.” But this opinion he afterwards saw reason from 


to retract. Discussing the nature of Mawu, the Sky-god of Europeans. 


1 R.S. Rattray, Ashanti, p. 52. 6 R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, pp. 145 
2K. S, Rattray, Ashanti, pp.2633¢¢.  °7-3 Compare p.54. 


‘ : 7 R.S. Rattray, Ashantz, p. 111. 
3 R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, pp. 148, 8 RS. RetEy ecianee ine shy 


aan 9 (Sir) A. B, Ellis, Zhe 7shi-speaking 
R.S. Rattray, Ashanti, pp. 22559. — Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa 
6 Above, p. 42. (London, 1887), pp. 24 sgg. 


RAS: 


Rattray on -p 


the in- 


102 WORSHIP: OF THE SKY IN: AFRICA CHAP. 


the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, he observes : 
“While upon the subject of this god, I may as well say that, 
from additional evidence I have since collected, I now think 
that the view I expressed concerning the origin of Nyan- 
kupon, the parallel god of the Tshi-speaking peoples,’ was 
incorrect ; and that instead of his being the Christian God, 
Hore and thinly disguised, I now hold that he is, lixe 
Mawu, the Sky-god, or indwelling spirit of the sky; and 
that, also like Mawu, he has been to a certain extent con- 
founded with Jehovah. It is worthy of remark that zyan- 
kum means ‘rain’, and xyan-konton, ‘rainbow’, while the 
word nyankupon itself is as frequently used to express sky, 


firmament, thunder, or rain, as it is as a proper name.” ~ 


The view, that the Sky-god of the Ashantis and other 
I'shi-speaking peoples is a pure product of native thought, 


dependent and that the resemblance which he presents to the Jehovah 


evolution of 


the Sky- 
god in 
West 
Africa. 


of the Jews and Christians is the result of the similar, but 
independent, working of the human mind in response to 
similar natural surroundings, is strongly confirmed by the 
latest and probably the best-informed investigator of Ashanti 
religion, Captain R. S. Rattray. He says: “1 have already 
stated that I am convinced that the conception, in the 
Ashanti mind, of a Supreme Being has nothing whatever to 
do with missionary influence, nor is it to be ascribed to con- 
tact with Christians or even, I believe, with Mohammedans. 

I believe that such a thought, so far from postulating 

an advanced stage in culture and what we term civilization, 
may well be the product of the mind of a primitive people 
who live face to face with nature, perhaps unclothed, sleeping 
under the stars, seeing great rivers dry up and yet again 
become rushing torrents, seeing the lightning from the 
heavens rending great trees and killing men and beasts, de- 
pending upon the rains for their own lives and those of their 
herds, observing that the very trees, and herbs, and grass 
can only live if they are watered from the skies. 

1 The Tshi or Twi language is the Northern Territories of the Gold 
spoken in the southern part of the — Coast, p. 113. 
Gold Coast, including Ashanti; in 
the northern part another language, 2 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Lwe-speaking 


the Moshi, is spoken in many districts. coples of the Slave Coast of West Africa 
See A. W. Cardinall, 7he Natives of | (London, 1890), pp. 36 sg. 


Vv WORSHIP(OF THE SKYAN: WESTERN: AFRICA’) 103 


“I can see no reason, therefore, why the idea of one 
great God, who is the Firmament, upon whom ultimately 
all life depends, should not have been the conception of a 
people living under the conditions of the Ashanti of old, 
and I can see no just cause for attributing what we have 
come to regard as one of the noblest conceptions of man’s 
mind, to dwellers in, and builders of, cities, and to writers 
and readers of parchments and books. 

“In a sense, therefore, it is true that this great Supreme 
Being, the conception of whom has been innate in the minds 
of the Ashanti, is the Jehovah of the Israelites. It was He 
who of old left His own dwelling above the vaulted sky, and 
entered the tent of dyed skins, where was His earthly abode 
and His shrine, when He came down to protect the children 
of Israel in their march to the Promised Land.” ? 

It is natural that the Ashantis should notice and ac- 
knowledge the resemblance of their Sky-god to the Supreme 
Being of Christians and Moslems. Captain Rattray was 
told by a native that “the Allah of the Mohammedan was 
just the same as the Nyame of the Ashanti ”.” 

But when, on the strength of this resemblance of ’Nyame 
to Jehovah, Captain Rattray asked an old priest why he did 
not put all his trust in the one great God and neglect the 
lesser deities, the Ashanti was by no means prepared to 
renounce polytheism in favour of monotheism, and he 
rendered a reason for the faith that was in him. He said: 
“We in Ashanti dare not worship the Sky-god alone, or the 
Earth-goddess alone, or any one spirit. We have to protect 
ourselves against, and use when we can, the spirits of all 
things in the Sky and upon Earth. You go to the forest, 
see some wild animal, fire at it, and find you have killed a 
man. You dismiss your servant, but later find you miss 
him. You take your cutlass to hack at what you think is 
a branch, and find you have cut your own arm. There are 
people who can transform themselves into leopards ; ‘the 
grass-land people’ are especially good at turning into hyenas. 


'R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, pp. 140 (Nyankupon), without noticing that the 
sg. Captain Rattray severely rebukes gallant and learned colonel had after- 
his superior officer, Colonel Sir A. B. wards explicitly recanted his heresy. 
Ellis (pp. 139 sg.), for his former view 2R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, p. 164 
of the Christian origin of ’Nyame  note!,. 


'Nyame 
identified 
with Allah. 


Yet the 
Ashantis 
prefer 
polytheism 
to mono- 
theism. 


104 WORSHIP.OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


There are witches who can make you wither and die. 
There are trees. which fall upon and kill you. There are 
rivers which drown you. If I see four or five Europeans, I 
do not make much of one alone, and ignore the rest, lest 
they too may have power and hate me.”’ 
Among all Among the numerous spirits whom the Ashanti is thus 
ieee obliged to recognize and, as far as possible, to conciliate, 
by the the most important for his practical welfare appear to be 
Ashantis the spirits of his own dead ancestors. On this subject I 


the most 
important will again quote the weighty words of Captain Kattray. 


neve He writes: “It is not, however, the Sky and the Earth 
spirits. _ deities who in Ashanti are held to be the prime factors in 
They are ae 

the seat Shaping and influencing the actions and destinies of man- 
land- kind. These great unseen powers are generally too remote 
owners ; 


the living OF perhaps too mighty to be concerned very intimately with 

ete the individual clan, much less with the individual member 

(ete of that clan, and the predominant influences in the 

atwill. Ashanti religion are neither ‘Saturday Sky-god’ nor 
‘Thursday Earth-goddess’, nor even the hundreds of gods 
(abosom), with which it is true the land is filled, but are the 
samanfo, the spirits of the departed forebears of the clan. 
They are the real landowners, who, though long departed, 
still continue to take a lively interest in the land from which 
they had their origin or which they once owned. The 
Ashanti land laws of to-day appear but. the logical outcome 
of a belief which, in the not very remote past, considered 
the living landowners as but holding as it were tenancies 
at will from the dead, and as being the trustees -of the 
latter.” ? 

Similarity “The student of the English law of Real Property who 

of “Ashant! comes to examine the Ashanti law relating to that subject, 


land laws 


tothe —_—will at first be astonished to find that a system, which he 
ssa had been taught to believe was peculiar to his own country, 


Property. had an almost exact replica in West Africa among the 


his A et 
similarity ‘shanti. Topham, one of our authorities on the law of Real 


: Bes due Property, writes, ‘The law relating to land is the most difficult 
9 DOorrow- . rE GS . ~ 
ing, but branch of English law, partly because it is peculiar to England 


ape and differs widely from any other system, and partly because 
evolution. it is founded in ancient rules and formalities invented to suit 


1 RK. S. Rattray, Ashanti, p. 150. 2 KR. S. Rattray, Ashanti, p. 216, 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY. IN. WESTERN AFRICA 105 


a society in which writing was almost unknown, and land was 

by far the most important form of wealth’. The student who 
argues that the similarity in our own ancient feudal land 

laws to the system evolved in Ashanti was due to any culture 
contact or to European influences is, I believe, arguing on a 
faulty premiss. The human mind and human intelligence, 

even among peoples so widely separated in culture as the 
Ashanti and the English of the eleventh century, seem often 

to have reacted in a like manner to a similar stimulus, and 

the Ashanti, under certain conditions not unlike those exist- 

ing at the time of the Norman conquest, seem to havé evolved 

an almost exactly similar land code.. This is not a matter 

of surprise when we know that our own land laws, like theirs, 

were ‘invented to suit a state of society in which writing was 
almost unknown and land was by far the most important form 

of wealth ’.”? 

What Captain Rattray here judiciously observes as to the So the | 

independent origin of the similar land laws of Ashanti and S!™atves 


England applies, with the necessary modifications, to the eee 

similarities in the worship of the Sky-god which we find eae 

among so many races of men separated from each other different 

by long distances in space and long ages in time. These ewes 

similarities, too, at least the greater part of them, are not to ae 

be explained by a theory of borrowing, by an hypothesis evolution. 

that the worship of the Sky-god was invented once for all 

in a single place by a single people, who thereafter passed 

on the invention to other tribes and nations, till, in ever- 

widening circles, it had spread almost to the ends of the 

earth. With far greater probability such resemblances may 

be deduced from the similarity, first of the human mind in 

all latitudes, and next of the blue vault of heaven which, lit 

up by sun, moon, and stars, everywhere looks down in 

serene majesty on all the races of man. Story told 
Like many other African tribes, the Tshi-speaking people ae ek 

of the Gold Coast tell stories which profess to explain human ane 

mortality by the negligence or perversity of a messenger jortality : 

whom the Sky-god had sent to men with the glad tidings ae oe of 


that death would not be for them the end of all things. One messengers 


. : the sheep 
form of the story runs thus. In the beginning, when sky are 


1 R.S. Rattray, Ashanti, pp. 223 sg. goat. 


The Sky- 

god Mawu 
the highest 
deity of the 
Ewe-speak- 
ing peoples, 


106 "WORSATP- OF, THE SS YIN ARICA CHAP. 


and earth existed, but as yet there were no men on earth, 
there fell a great rain, and soon after it had ceased a great 
chain was let down from heaven to earth with seven men 
hanging on it. These men had been created by the Sky-god 
Onyankopon, and they reached the earth by means of the 
chain. Not long afterwards the Sky-god sent a goat from 
heaven to deliver the following message to the seven men: 
“There is something that is called Death; it will one day 
kill some of you; but though you die, you will not perish 
utterly, but you will come to me here in heaven”. The goat 
went on his way, but when he came near the town he stopped 
to browse on a bush. When the Sky-god saw that the goat 
loitered by the way, he sent a sheep to deliver the same 
message. The sheep went, but did not say what God had 
commanded her to say; for she perverted the message and 
said to men, “When you once die, you perish, and have no 
place to go to”. Afterwards the goat came and said, “ God 
(Onyankopon) says you will die, it is true, but that will not 
be the end of you, for you will come to me”. But the men 
answered, “ No, goat, God (Onyankopon) did not say that to 
you. What the sheep first reported, by that we shall abide.”? 
In another version of the story the parts of the goat and the 
sheep are inverted; it is the sheep that bears the good tidings 
and loiters by the way to browse, and it is the goat that 
bears the evil tidings and is the first to deliver them. The 
story ends with the melancholy reflection that “if only the 
sheep had made good speed with her message, man would 
have died but returned after death; but the goat made better 
speed with the contrary message, so man returns no more ”.” 


The Ewe-speaking peoples are a race of pure negroes, 
who inhabit the Slave Coast of West Africa, including what 
we may call the provinces of Togo on the west and Dahomey 
on the east. In their religious system, the Sky-god Mawu 
ranks as the highest deity of the pantheon. His name is 


1 J. G. Christaller, ‘* Negersagen 2 J. G. Christaller, of. c#t, pp. 56- 
von der Goldkiiste”, Zeztschrzft fiir 58. Compare E, Perregaux, Chez les 
afrtkanische Sprachen, i, (Berlin, 1887— Achanti (Neuchatel, 1906), pp. 198 
1888), pp. 51-55. I have reported sg,.; Folk-lore in the Old Testament, 
this story elsewhere (/o/k-lore in the i. 59 sq. 

Old Testament, i. 58 sq.). 


Vv WORSE OF TITER SAVAN WESTERN ALRICA 107 


used as equivalent to sky or firmament; “and the god him- 
self is no other than the indwelling spirit of the firmament, 
the deified canopy of the heavens”.' The name of Mawu 
is known throughout the whole of the country, wherever the 
Ewe language is spoken, from the coast far into the interior, 
and is of importance in the daily life of the people. The 
idea of the Sky-god is not of foreign origin, a reflection of 
missionary teaching ; it is an ancient possession of the race 
and is said to have formerly occupied an even higher place 
in the popular religion than it does at the present day. The 
conception seems to have been moulded directly on the 
sight of the celestial vault. The light which floods the sky 
is conceived as the oil with which the deity anoints his 
gigantic body ; the blue colour of the sky is the veil behind 
which he hides his face; and the varied formations of the 
clouds are the robes and the ornaments which he puts 
on from time to time.” When the morning clouds are seen 
encircled with a rim of light and the blue sky peeps between 
the rifts, the natives say, “Mawu has donned his coat of 
many colours”. The proper name for the visible sky is 
dsingbe, but the visible sky is also called Wawu gd, “the great 
God”. Ina native assembly a man has been heard to say, 
“T have always looked up to the visible sky as to God. 
When I spoke of God, I spoke of the sky, and when I 
spoke of the sky, I thought of God”. Another man observed, 
“ Wherever the sky is, there is God ; for the sky is God”. 
The meaning and derivation of Mawu, the name of the The 
Sky-god, appear to be uncertain. According to Sir A. B. deduct 
Ellis, the word is derived from a root wz, signifying “to Mawu. 
stretch over, to overshadow ”, so that Wazwu would be literally 
“the canopy of heaven”.® According to the experienced 
German missionary, Jakob Spieth, to whom we owe the most 
thorough investigation of the religion of the Ewe-speaking 
peoples, the natives agree in explaining the root wz to 
signify “more” or “surpassing”; so that Maw should 
mean, “ The Surpassing ”, “He who is and has more than 
1 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, 7he Ewe-speaking in Stid-Togo (Leipzig, 1911), p. 5. 
Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa 3 J. Spieth, Dee Zwe-Stamme, p.42 4. 
(London, 1890), p. 31; J. Spieth, Dze 4 J.Spieth, Die Lwe-Stamme, p.423. 


Ewe-Stamme (Berlin, 1906), p. 67*. 5 (Sir) A. B, Ellis, 7e Zwe-speaking 
2 J. Spieth, Dre Religion der Eweer Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 31. 


How one of 


Mawu’s 
two sons 
cheated his 
brother out 
of his 
father’s 
blessing. 


108 WOKSHIPNOPL- THE SIAY AUN CARICA CHAP. 


men”. In fact,the natives always end their explanations of 
the name by saying “ Aww nustanu”, “ He surpasses every- 
thing that exists”. But the missionary prudently warns us 
that all such interpretations rest rather on conjectures and 
assertions of the natives than on exact philological investiga- 
tion. He himself inclines to discover the essential part of 
the name in the syllable sa, of which the natives give 
various inconsistent explanations; and he interprets the 
whole name in the sense of a being who is opposed to all 
wrath, revenge, and wrong. “His nature contains no veve, 
that is, nothing that causes pain or injury. The worshipper 
of Mawu may therefore paint himself only with white and 
wear only white cloth; white colour alone harmonizes with ma. 
For the same reason during the worship of Mawu he may not 
have anything to do with the Earth-gods or with magic.” ’ 
But while: Mawu appears to be essentially a god of the 
physical sky, popular fancy invests him with the form and 
attributes of a man.2 He is supposed to be married to the 
Earth; hence he is addressed as “ Husband of the Earth”, 
and also as “Our Father”? According to one account he 
has two wives. His first wife, Kusoako, bore him a son 
named Mawute, who stammered; his second wife, Baka, 
bore him a son named Adedze, who did not stammer. One 
morning Adedze went to his divine father to greet him. 
Touched by this polite attention, his father promised to 
bestow on him his power, his royal insignia, and his warlike 
accoutrements. But Mawu’s other wife, the mother of the 
stammerer, happened to overhear this promise, and she said 
to her son, “Stop stammering and speak rightly! Go to 
thy father, Mawu, that thou mayest get his royal insignia.” 
Her son Mawute obeyed, and when he came to his father 
Mawu, and spoke to him without stammering, his father 
thought that he was his son Adedze, and gave him his 
royal insignia. But after that Mawute had thus deceived 
his father, Mawu’s other son Adedze came to _ his father and 
said, “ Father, I have come to thee to get what thou didst 


‘promise me yesterday”. His father said, “ Hast thou not 


1 J. Spieth, Dée Hwe-Stdmme, pp. t Stid-Togo, p. 15; zd., Die Ewe- 
421-423. Stdmme, p. 424. , 
‘ 3 J. Spieth, Die Hwe-Stamme, p. 
2 J. Spieth, Dze Religion der Eweer 423. 


Vv WORSHIP OF LTE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA 109 


already come and received that which I promised thee?” 
But Adedze answered, “ Nay, I have not been with thee”. 
Then said his father, “ Therefore hath thy brother taken 
away the promise, and I possess nothing else”. But his son 
Adedze earnestly entreated him, and his father, Mawu, 
bestowed on him power also.' 

The natives say that long ago the great god Mawu WhyMawu 

dwelt among men on terms of intimacy, but that through Curt" 
their guilt he was forced to withdraw to an infinite distance heaven. 
and to delegate the conduct of affairs to the inferior gods.” 
The offence which gave umbrage to the deity is variously 
related. According to one account, the sky was once so near 
the earth that men could touch it with their hands. Hence 
when they kindled a fire the smoke blew into the Sky-god’s 
eyes so that they smarted, and that is why he retired so far 
away. Others say that after their meals people used to wipe 
their dirty fingers on the sky, and even thrust their porridge- 
pestles into the Sky-god’s face. That was naturally more 
than he could put up with, and in dudgeon he withdrew to 
his present exalted position in the sky. There, according to 
some, he dwells in a space surrounded by fire; but according 
to others he resides in a house which stands in a large 
garden planted with banana trees.* Thus the Sky-god, 
Mawyu, is conceived of as distinct from the physical sky. A 
priest of the Earth explicitly declared, “Mawu is not the 
Sky (dzingbe), but he has his dwelling in the sky ”.° 

In his capacity of Sky-god, Mawu sends the rain as a Mawu 
good gift to men.® Hence in time of drought the god’s priest “PP 
prays to the Sky, saying, “O our father and our Lord, we the rain. 
thank thee. But see how parched our land is! It is very 
dry and we must suffer hunger. Grant that to-day, even 
to-day, the rain may fall!”’ But while Mawu controls the 


1 J. Spieth, Dze Religion der Eweer 
tn Stid-Togo, pp. 25 sg. This story is 
told by the natives in the neighbourhood 
of Mount Agu. It presents a suspicious 
resemblance to the Biblical story of 
how Jacob, at the instigation of his 
mother, intercepted the paternal bless- 
ing which was designed for his elder 
brother Esau (Genesis xxvii. ). 

2 J. Spieth, Dze Lwe-Stdmme, pp. 
67*, 419. 


3 J. Spieth, De Hwe-Stdmme, p. 
423. 

4 J. Spieth, Die Hwe-Stamme, p. 
67*, compare p. 424. 

5 J. Spieth, Die Hwe-Stdmme, p. 
424. 

6 J. Spieth, Dze Religion der Eweer 
in Stid-Togo, pp. 15, 25. 

7 J. Spieth, Dze Hwe-Stamme, pp. 
72, 432. 


The 
rainbow a 
sign given 


by him. 


The native 
conception 
of Mawuas 
a god too 
high and 
mighty to 
trouble 
about 
human 
affairs. 


110 WORSHIP COL DLL LS TA PARI ON oe fed Cd CHAP. 


rain, and keeps a vast store of water in the firmament, which 
he lets out at will, the seasons on the Slave Coast are so 
regular that there is rarely either drought or flood; hence 
the natives are seldom driven to the necessity: of appealing 
to the Sky-god to increase or diminish the rainfall.' The 
rainbow is a sign given by Mawu. When it is seen to stand 
over the valley instead of over the mountain, it is a sign 
that Mawu is angry because of man’s disobedience, and it is 
needful to appease him by pouring palm-wine and blood on 
the earth.” In Agu, when a rainbow appears in the sky, 
they say, “Kusoako (the wife of Mawu) and her husband are 
departing and going home”? | 
According to Lieutenant Herold, while the Ewe-speaking 
negroes of Togo entertain a profound belief in Mawu as a 
higher divine being, they conceive of him on the analogy of 
a great African king who sits enthroned and lives at ease in 
his capital, doing nothing, while he leaves the government 
of the country to his chiefs. Similarly Mawu is supposed 
to be an all-powerful king, who created the world and is still 
lord of it, but has now retired from it and is far too high 
and mighty to trouble himself about all the sons of men. 
Therefore he leaves the conduct of affairs in the hands of 
his chiefs, who are the minor deities or fetishes. Yet is he 
a friend of men and so great and good that he demands 
no offerings from them. All would go well with the world 
if only Mawu kept the reins in his own hands instead of 
committing them to the fetishes. These represent the 
various forces of nature, and bear rule each in his own par- 
ticular department. They stand in closer relations to man 
than Mawu, and can be induced either to help or to abstain 
from injuring him, if only he can win their favour or avert 
their wrath by sacrifice and offerings. But the great god 
Mawu, despite his omnipotence, can or will do nothing for 
man. Thus the belief in a great God Mawu, the Creator 
of the world, has fallen completely into the background, and 
it would not be in the interest of the fetish-priests to revive 
it, since such a revival would tend to lower the reputation 


1 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Ewe-speaking in Stid-Togo, p. 25. 
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 34. 3 J. Spieth, Dze Religion der Eweer 
2 J. Spieth, Die Religion der Eweer in Stid-Togo, p. 27. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN- WESTERN. AFRICA. - 111 


and diminish the influence of the minor deities or fetishes, 
on whose imaginary powers for good or evil the priests 
themselves depend for their. livelihood.’ 

To the same effect Sir A. B. Ellis tells us that, “though Elis on 
Mawu is considered the most powerful of all the gods, era 
sacrifice is never directly offered to him, and prayer rarely. Mawu. 
He is in fact ignored rather than worshipped. The natives 
explain this by saying he is too distant to trouble about 
man and his affairs, and they believe that he remains ina 
beatific condition of perpetual repose and drowsiness, the 
acme of bliss, according to the notion of the indolent negro, 
perfectly indifferent to earthly matters. . . . To this belief 
may be undoubtedly attributed the absence of sacrifice to 
Mawu. To the native mind a god that works no evil to 
man, and is indifferent to his welfare, is one that it would 
be a work of supererogation to mollify or appease, while 
there are so many other gods who either work evil and 
have to be appeased, or are special guardians and have to 
be lauded.” ” 

However, Ellis hastens to qualify this alleged absence The 
of sacrifice to Mawu by telling us that, when domestic fowls eae 
and other birds are sacrificed to the terrestrial gods, their birds. 
spirits are believed to ascend to Mawu as his portion of the 
sacrifice, while the bodies of the birds are the share of the 
terrestrial deities. For birds are thought to stand in some 
relation to Mawu, since they soar aloft and approach his 
abode in the sky. A small bird, a variety of the oriole, 
which soars like a lark, and makes a whirring sound by 
striking its wing-feathers together, is sacred to Mawu.° 

Further, in correction of what he regards as Ellis’s too Prayers 
absolute negation of sacrifices offered. directly to Mawu, the eat my 
experienced missionary Jakob Spieth tells us that it is Mawu. 
precisely the priests of the Sky-god who offer both prayers 
and sacrifices. As an instance of prayers offered by these 


1 Lieutenant Herold, ‘‘ Bericht  eoples of the Slave Coast, pp. 33 59: 
betreffend religidse Anschauungen und Compare H. Klose, 7ogo unter deutscher 
Gebrauche der deutschen Ewe-Neger”, Flagge (Berlin, 1899), pp. 266 sv., 
Mitthetlungen von Forschungsreisenden whose account of Mawu agrees in 
und Gelehrten aus den deutschen general with that of Ellis, 
Schutzgebieten, v. (1892) pp. 141 sg., 
149. 3 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Awe-speaking 

2 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Hwe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, pp. 34 59. 


The 
worship of 
the great 
Sky-god 
Mawu. 


112 WORST POOR LH ESSE YIN Arica car. 


priests he cites the supplications for rain in time of drought 
which we have already noticed. Besides, he informs us, the 
priest offers every year a piece of a yam which he has 
planted for the purpose, and he accompanies the sacrifice 
with a prayer.’ | rn 
The great Sky-god (J7awu gd) is only worshipped by 
persons with whom he is believed to dwell, and who have 
prepared for him a seat and a special place of worship. 
Sometimes the seat is of a very humble sort and consists 
simply of a vessel set upon a three-pronged pole, thus 
exactly resembling the altars of the Sky-god in Ashanti.” 
In this vessel are placed certain plants, especially one called 
mut, which resembles spinach and is much used in the 


_worship of the Sky-god.: The vessel is also kept full of 


The daily, 
weekly, 
and 
monthly 
observ- 
ances in 
honour of 
Mawu. 


water the whole year. Other people, however, make an 
enclosure for the god, fencing it with palm-branches and 
planting in it various herbs and a certain sort of tree, which 
they call God’s tree (Mawutz). Its lofty and slender stem, 
which distinguishes it from the other trees, appears to mark 
it out as specially suitable for the worship of the Sky-god. 
Beside it they also plant another palm-like tree, which they 
call “the lightning-tree”. Under the shadow of these trees 
stands the sacred vessel, which differs from the sacred vessels 
of the Earth-gods in this that its clay has not been fired.® 
The water which it contains must be drawn by a pure and 
unmarried girl, and it is mixed with palm wine.* 

The observances in honour of the great Sky-god take 
place daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. The daily service 
consists mainly in washing with water drawn from the god’s 
vessel, This purification the worshipper undergoes immedi- 
ately on rising in the morning; he accompanies it with a 
prayer, and until he has performed it he may not speak 
with any one. At the weekly and monthly services the 
worshipper makes a small offering of eggs, palm-wine, and 
meal. In presenting it he prays, saying, “O great God, who 
seest my thoughts, here I bring thee two partridge eggs. 
Have a care of my house, of my children and of my wives, 


1 J. Spieth, Die Ezwe-Stamme, p. 435 5g. As to the ma plant, see zd. 
72%, pp. 421 sg. 

2 See above, p. 100, 4 J. Spieth, Die Lwe-Stamme, p. 

3 J. Spieth, Die Hwe-Stamme, pp. 436. 


Vv WON SLO ie SRY IN IU ESLERIN ANRICA 113 


and grant that I get cowry shells, in order that my house 
may evermore have peace.” The weekly service falls on 
Saturday. When the priest rises from his mat, he washes 
his face with water from the god’s vessel, dabs white clay on 
his forehead, temples, breast and arms, and puts on white 
clothes. Then he betakes himself to the hut dedicated to 
the worship of Mawu. There, sitting on a stool sprinkled 
with white clay, he remains till the sun goes down. This he 
does because on that day the god is believed to abide with 
him till the cool of the evening, when he takes his departure. 
On leaving the hut the priest hangs a.white cloth over the 
doorway.’ 

At the annual festival the only offering is that of a ‘The 
sheep of a pure white fleece. The vessels out of which Spe ma 
the sacrificer eats and drinks must be spotlessly clean ; the sheep at 
vessel out of which he eats should be white. The guests Na aay 
invited to the festival must have slept apart from their wives honour of 
on the preceding night. The food must be cooked and pegs 
the water fetched by girls who have not yet known a man. 
-The fire used in cooking may not be taken from a common 
hearth ; it ought to be struck from flint and steel, but the 
use of European matches is now allowed. The pot is set 
over the fire on a tripod of three stout sticks. At the con- 
clusion of the festival the fire is extinguished by water which 
has been drawn in the morning by a pure hand. This pre- 
caution is adopted lest the sacred element should be defiled. 
The three charred sticks are carefully preserved by the 
worshipper.” Before sacrificing the sheep, the worshipper 
holds the animal up. thrice towards the sky and prays; he 
then cuts the sheep’s throat with a knife, and from the 
spouting blood he allows some drops to fall into the god’s 
vessel. The rest of the blood is suffered to flow across the 
entrance to the sacred enclosure. In entering the enclosure 
the worshipper must take care not to step in the blood, 
because the god Mawu himself is believed to set his feet in the 
blood when he comes out of the holy place. The sacrificer 
then drinks water out of the sacred vessel, washes his face and 
body, and so enjoys the peace of God. The flesh of the 


1 J. Spieth, Die Hwe-Stimme, p. 2 J. Spieth, Die Hwe-Stamme, pp. 
436. 436 sg. 
NOI I 


Beliefs of 
the Fo 
concerning 
Mawu. 


Story of the 
origin of 
death : 
Mawu and 
the spider, 


How 
Mawu 
provides 
the beasts 
with their 
food: the 
dwarf 
antelope 
and the 
cat. 


II4 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


victim is cooked and divided among the persons present. 
The time of offering the sacrifice is when the afternoon 
wears on to evening, and the earth grows cool after the 
noonday heat. The sun is regarded as the messenger who 
conveys the prayers of mortals to the Sky-god. Hence, 
while the priest turns in prayer to the house of God in the 
holy place, he yet looks, in the deepening shadows, towards 
the setting sun, which will carry his words to the great deity 
in the course of the ensuing night.’ 

In Atakpame, an inland district of Togo, there are some 
isolated settlements of a tribe called Fo, who speak a Ewe 
language among people of an alien tongue. They have 
preserved the tradition of the Supreme God Mawu, and they 
tell some stories about him. One of the stories professes to 
explain the origin of death. It runs as follows. When 
Mawu created men, he said to them, “ When anybody dies, 
he shall come back to earth”, by which he meant that when 
a man died, he was to come to life again. But the spider 
did not like the notion and said, “ That is not well”. Then 
Mawu took a calabash, and set it on the water, and said, 
“As the calabash always remains on the surface of the 
water, so shall man also always remain on the earth”. But 
the spider threw a stone into the water, and the stone 
sank, and the spider said, “ Mawu ought to say that, when a 
man dies, he should vanish like this stone and not come 
back again”. To this fatal proposal Mawu unhappily 
assented. Soon after the spider's mother died, and the 
spider came to Mawu, and begged him to retract his 
sentence of death, but Mawu refused to do so. That is 
why nobody returns, when once he is dead. If only Mawu 
had retracted his rash sentence, dead men would have come 
back to earth, just like the moon, which dies and returns to 
the sky, 2 

Again, the Fo tell a story to explain how Mawu 
provides the beasts of the earth with food. They say that 
once on a time there was a famine among the beasts and 
they all grew very lean, all except the dwarf antelope 


1 J. Spieth, Die Ewe-Stdmme, pp. in Einzeldarstellungen”, <Azchropos, 


438 sg. iii, (1908) pp. 275 sg., 277. 
2 Fr. Miiller, ‘‘ Die Religionen Togos 


Vv WON Sed FeO htt ilo Youd IVE SCE RIVVAPRICA)) Ut5 


(Cephalolophus maxwelliz), for her mother was with Mawu in 
heaven, and every day her mother let down a rope, and the 
dwarf antelope climbed up it to its mother to browse. So 
the beasts said, “We will watch the dwarf antelope and 
learn how she gets her food”. And they told the cat to 
watch. And the cat took up a post on a tree, and kept 
a sharp look-out. When the dwarf antelope saw that the 
other animals had gone away, she sang her song, and her 
mother let down the rope. Then the cat summoned the 
animals, and they came, grasped the rope, and proceeded to 
climb up it, hand over hand. But the mother, in hauling 
up the rope, felt the unusual weight, and said to herself, 
“My daughter alone is not so heavy as all that”. So she 
whipped out a:knife and cut the rope, and down fell all 
the animals, Where they fell, the sea came and the grass 
crew no more. ‘To compensate for this loss of pasture, the 
kindly Mawu sent food to all the animals. Therefore they 
suffer from famine no more.! | 

) In the interior of Togo, which, as we have seen, is a 
province of the Slave Coast, there live a number of tribes 
speaking languages which differ from the Ewe. But among 
them also we find the worship of the same great Sky-god 
under different names. Thus the Akposos worship him 
under the name of Uwolowu, which they regard as equiva- 
lent to the Mawu of the Ewe-speaking peoples, and to the 
Buku of the Atakpames, their neighbours on the east. The 
same word Uwolowu is used to designate both the firmament 
and its personification. This personified sky is conceived 
of as the Supreme Being and a good God. He created 
everything, including the lesser gods. He bestows on men 
the blessings of offspring and harvest, of rain and sunshine. 
He has also given them fire. He is almighty and can 
impart all good things. Wherever a priest has set a place 
apart for his worship, there is the god in a special way near 
to men. The place of worship is a circle of stones from 
three to five feet in diameter, with a flat stone in the middle, 
“like the cromlechs of the later stone-age in England”. 
In cases of sickness and at the end of harvest sacrifices are 


1 Fr, Miiller, ‘‘Die Religionen Togos in Einzeldarstellungen”, Anthropos, 
ili, (1908) p. 279. 


Uwolowu, 
the Sky- 
god of the 
Akposos, 
in the 
interior of 
Togo. 


Men 
sometimes 
possessed 
by 
Uwolowu. 


Myths 
about 
Uwolowu. 
His two 
wives, the 
frog and 
the king- 
fisher. 


116 WORSAIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


offered, consisting of rams, fowls, oil, meal, salt, cowry-shells, 
and palm-wine. The god punishes especially vampyres and 
persons who forswear themselves by his name. The week of 
the Akposos consists of five days, and the fifth day is sacred 
to Uwolowu. The second day is a bad day. People do 
not work on it, but they sacrifice to the gods, though not to 
Uwolowu.' 

The worshippers of Uwolowu are not distinguished by 
any outward mark. From time to time the god takes 
possession of a man. The chosen vessel announces the 
divine inspiration by a particularly piercing shriek, then he 
remains dumb and quivers all oyer his body. In this state 
he betakes himself to one of the holy places of Uwolowu, 
where the priest gives him water mixed with white clay to 
drink and claps him on the head with the flat of his hand. 
The possessed man thus recovers the use of his tongue, but 
for that day he may not carry anything on his head ; it 
would infallibly fall. On special occasions, such as sickness, 
drought, or war, an Akposo will go on pilgrimage to Adele, 
there to consult Buku or Uwolowu, as he calls the deity, 
and to offer sacrifice.” 

Various myths are told of Uwolowu. Thus it is said 
that he had two wives; one of them was a frog, and the 
other was a bird called ztanco, perhaps the kingfisher. Now 
Uwolowu loved his frog wife more than his kingfisher wife, 
and he gave all sorts of pretty things to her, but none to 
the kingfisher. Well, one day he said he would put their 
love to the test, and with that view he gave each of them 
seven. pots and made believe to be dead, and his widows 
were to weep for his decease and let their tears fall into the 
pots. The frog began and wept like anything, but as fast 
as her tears fell they were licked up by ants. Then the 
kingfisher wept so copiously that her tears filled the seven 
pots. After that the frog tried again, but still the ants 
licked up her tears, so that little enough trickled into the 
pots. Thereupon God stood up and said, “She whom I did 
not love has filled seven pots with the tears which she wept 

1 Rr. Miiller, ‘‘ Die Religionen Togos 2 Fr. Miiller, ‘‘ Die Religionen Togos 


in Einzeldarstellungen ”, Anthropos, ii. in Einzeldarstellungen ”, Azethropos, ii. 
(1907) p. 201. (1907) p. 202. 


Vv WORSHIP OR WAL SIV IN WESTERN AFRICA: 117 


for me, and she whom I loved has wept very little”. With 
these pathetic words the deity lunged out with his foot and 
kicked the frog into the slime and ooze of a river-bank, 
where she has wallowed ever since. But as for the king- 
fisher, Uwolowu set her free to roam joyously for ever in 
the azure deep of air." 

Another myth is told of Uwolowu to explain the origin 
of death. They say that once upon a time men sent a dog 
with a message to the deity to say that, when they died, they 
would like to come to life again. So off the dog trotted to 
deliver the message. But on the way he felt hungry and 
turned into a house, where a man was boiling magic herbs. 
So the dog sat down and thought to himself, “ He is cooking 
food”. Meantime the frog had set off to tell Uwolowu that, 
when men died, they would rather not come to life again. 
Nobody had asked him to take that message ; it was a piece 
of pure officiousness and impertinence on his part. However, 
away he tore. The dog, who still sat hopefully watching the 
hell-broth brewing, saw him go tearing by, but thought he to 
himself, “When I have had a snack, I'll soon catch froggy 
up... However, froggy came in first and said to the deity, 
“When men die, they would rather not come to life again ”’. 
After that, up comes the dog, and says he, “When men die, 
they would like to come to life again”. The deity was 
naturally puzzled, and said to the dog, “I really do not 
understand these two messages. As I heard the frog’s 
message first, I will comply with it. I will not do what you 
said.” That is the reason why men die and do not come 
to life again. If the frog had only minded his own business 
instead of meddling with other people’s, the dead would all 
have risen from the dead down to this blessed day. But 
frogs come to life again when it thunders at the beginning 
of the rainy season, after they have been dead all the dry 
season while the Harmattan wind was blowing. Then, 
while the rain drips and the thunder peals, you may hear 
them quacking in the marshes.” Thus we see that the frog 
had his own private ends to serve in distorting the message. 


1 Fr. Miiller, ‘‘Die Religionen Togos in Einzeldarstellungen ”, An¢hrofos, ii. 
in Einzeldarstellungen”’, An¢thropos, ii. (1907) p. 203.‘ I have cited this myth 
(1907) p. 204. ; elsewhere (/olk-lore in the Old Testa- 

2 Fr. Miiller, **Die Religionen Togos = mevtz, i. 62). 


Myth of 
the origin 
of death : 
Uwolowu, 
the dog, 
and the 
frog. 


Myth of 
the origin 
of sun and 
moon : 
Uwolowu 
and the 
grub, 


The 
Yoruba- 
speaking 
peoples of 
the Slave 
Coast. 


118 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


He gained for himself the immortality of which he robbed 
mankind. 

These people also tell a story of Uwolowu to explain 
the origin of the sun and moon. One day, while as yet 
there was neither sun nor moon in the sky, a grub came to 
Uwolowu and said, “What must be done to the clouds to 
make them bright?” And Uwolowu said to the grub, “Go 
to the smith and fetch the thing which he would set in the 
clouds”. So away went the grub, and much he pondered 
what he should do, for he had not the glimmering of a 
notion what the thing was that he had to fetch. So the 
erub went to all the birds and begged a feather from every 
one of them ; and when he had rigged himself out in these 
borrowed plumes, he flew back to Uwolowu and asked him, 
“Where’s the grub?” And Uwolowu, not recognizing him 
in his disguise, answered, “ Because the sky was empty, I 
sent him to fetch the thing to set in the sky”. But the 
artful grub asked again, ‘“ What was he to fetch?” Uwolowu 
answered, “I sent him to the smith to say that he was to 
forge the sun and moon, and when they glowed and threw 
out sparks, which are the stars, he was to put them all in 
his bag and bring them to me”. When the grub heard 
that, he flew away, put off his disguise, and gave back 
the feathers to the birds. Then he delivered the message 
to the smith. So the smith gave him the sun, moon, and 
stars, and the grub brought the whole bag of tricks to 
Uwolowu. And Uwolowu asked the grub, “Who taught 
you all that ?” and the grub answered, “ It was an idea of my 
own”. And Uwolowu said to the grub, “Put the sun in its 
place,’ and the grub did so. And at evening Uwolowu 
said to the grub, “ Put the moon and the stars in their places 
likewise”. And the grub did so, and the moon and the 
stars shone in the sky. That, you may take my word for 
it, is the true origin of the sun, moon, and stars," 


The eastern half of the Slave Coast is inhabited by 
peoples speaking the Yoruba language. Their territory is 
bounded on the west by Dahomey, on the east by Benin, 


1 Fr. Miiller, ‘‘Die Religionen Togos in Einzeldarstellungen”, Axthropos, ii. 
(1907) p 208. 


en 


Vv WORSAITL OF THE, SKY IN WESTERN: APRICA: .419 


and on the south by the sea. On the north they are pent 
in by Mohammedan tribes, which in- modern times have 
invaded and conquered some of Yoruba-land. The Yorubas 
were originally an inland people, and it was only about the 
beginning of the nineteenth century that, under the pressure 
of stronger tribes from the north, they moved southward and 
occupied the coast.’ They believe ina Sky-god named Olorun, 
who corresponds to the "Nyame of the Tshi- or Twi-speaking 
peoples, and to the Mawu of the Ewe-speaking peoples. He is 
the deified firmament, the personified sky. His name Olorun 
signifies “Owner of the Sky”, from onz, “ possessor”, and 
orun,“sky”” Like many other African Sky-gods, Olorun is 
thought to be too far off, or too indifferent, to interfere in the 
affairs of this sublunary world. The Yorubas are of opinion 
that after having, so to say, roughed out the world, Olorun 
entrusted the task of completing and governing it to a 
deputy-deity named Obatala, while he himself retired from the 
business and became a sleeping partner in the divine firm. 
Accordingly, he now enjoys a life of complete idleness and 
repose, a blissful condition between slumber and dozing, like 
that of a negro king in the sultry climate of Guinea. Since 
he is too indolent or listless to exercise any control over 
earthly affairs, man on his side wastes no time in vain efforts 
to propitiate him, but reserves his worship and his offerings 
for more active and enterprising deities or demons, who are 
apt to take only too great an interest in the business and 
fortunes of mankind. Hence there are no images, no temples, 
no symbols of Olorun; no priests are dedicated to his service; 
and it is only in times of calamity or affliction, when the 
other gods have turned a deaf ear to his supplications, that 
a Yoruba will, perhaps, as a last resource, invoke the help 
or appeal to the compassion of the Sky-god Olorun. But 
such occasions are rare. As a rule the god receives no 
worship and is importuned by no prayers. Nevertheless, 
when a native, for example, conceives himself to be the 
victim of injustice, he may instinctively appeal to Olorun to 

1 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Yorula- speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, 
speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast  pp.355g.; Pére Baudin, ‘‘Le Fétichisme 
of West Africa (London, 1894), pp. oula Religion des Negres de laGuinée”, 


I 59. Les Missions Catholiques, No. 776, 
2 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Yoruba- 18 avril 1884, p. 191. 


Their 
belief in a 
Sky-god 
called 
Olorun, 
who is 
supposed 
not to 
concern 
himself 
with 
human 
affairs and 
conse- 
quently is 
not 
generally 
worshipped. 


The Sky- 
god 
Olorun 
recognized 
by the 
Yorubas of 
Northern 
Nigeria. 


120 WORSHIPIOP LHEVSRAGN ALIN CA CHAP. 


attest his innocence, saying, “Olorun sces me”, or. “ Olorun 
knows that I speak the truth”, or “O Olorun, save me!” 
They also swear by Olorun, often using the simple words, 
“Olorun! Olorun!” while at the same time they lift their 
hands towards the sky. The name. of Olorun is also fre- 
quently heard in salutations at morning and evening. Thus 
in the morning a man will say to a friend, “ Have you risen 
well?” and the other will answer, “ Thanks be to Olorun” ; 
and at evening a common salutation or prayer is, “ May 
Olorun protect us all!” (K’Olorun ko so gbogbo wo !). 

The Yoruba-speaking people are not confined to the 
Slave Coast. A large body of them, numbering more than 
half a million, is to be found to the west of the Niger in 
the northern provinces of Nigeria,” inhabiting a country 
which may have been the home of their race before the bulk 
of the nation was driven southward to the sea. Here, 
however, the original negro type has been modified by an 
Hamitic, or at any rate non-negro element, which mani- 
fests itself in the slender build of the body.® But though 
Islam is now the dominant religion of Northern Nigeria, 
being embraced by about two-thirds of the population,’ 
many of these Yorubas retain their faith in a remote Sky- 
god named Olorun, who has been called the Zeus of the 
Yoruba pantheon. They think that Olorun created Obatala 
or Oshala, who fashions human children in the mother’s 
womb and is wedded to Odudua. Of this divine pair were 
born Aganju, lord of the soil, and Yemaja, the goddess of 
water. Aganju married his sister Yemaja, and they begat 
Orungan, the god of the upper air. But the lustful Orungan 
ravished his mother Yemaja, and from this incestuous union 
a whole brood of gods was born at a single birth, including 
the Sun-god Orun; the Moon-god Oshu; Shango, lord of 
lightning ; Dada, god of vegetation; Orisha Oko, god of 
agriculture; Oshosi, god of hunting; Ogun, god of iron workers 


1 Pére Baudin, ‘* Le Tétichisme ou 
la Religion des Negres de la Guinée”, 
Les Missions Catholigues, No. 776, 
LS ayril 13884, > pee lLOls (oir) es 
Ellis, Zhe Yoruba-speaking Peoples of 
the Slave Coast of West Africa, pp. 
36 sg. Compare P, Bouche, Za Céte 
des Fsclaves et le Dahomey (Paris, 


1885), pp. 106-108, . 

2 C.K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
of Nigeria (Oxford University Press, 
T9259), 1. 24: 

3-C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern 77tbes 
of Nigeria, i. 29. 

4C. K. Meek, The Northern Tribes 
of Nigeria, ii. 1*sq. 


Vv MeCiieidd) Or wii lemon r Hav WES TE NINIALRICA | 127 


and of war; and Shankpana, god of smallpox. In giving 

birth to these numerous divinities Yemaja’s body burst, and 

where she fell the sacred town of Ife arose. Hence to this 
day every Yoruba-speaking tribe endeavours to trace its 
descent from the holy town of Ife.’ 
| But the Yoruba-speaking tribes form but a small part The 

of the population of Northern Nigeria, a country five times eee) el 
the size of Itngland.” The fertile provinces in the northern Nigeria a 
part of this great territory border on the vast sandy desert Peter 
of the Sahara, and being divided from it by no natural by the 
barrier have offered for unnumbered ages a tempting bait to eee 
horde after horde of warlike invaders from the north and ‘tous 
east, who, sweeping over the country in wave after wave, and aye 
blending to a certain extent with the aborigines, have pro- 

duced a heterogeneity of cultures and languages, as well as 

of racial type, which almost defies analysis. Those tribes 

which were able to maintain themselves in the open fertile 

plains of the north have in large measure amalgamated and 
evolved, from the most diverse elements, a comparatively 
homogeneous nation and language, the Hausa nation and 

the Hausa tongue.® They now form the most widely distri- 

buted people of the country, which they may be said to 
dominate socially and economically.* 

The weaker and more backward tribes were driven by The more 
the tide of invasion to seek refuge in the hills, where they ran a 
formed groups of polyglot peoples, exhibiting almost un- their — 
paralleled diversities in culture and social organization. Per’. 
Safe in their highlands from the stream of foreign intrusion, customs 
which broke at the foot of their mountains, they have kept Var aaa 
to modern times all their primitive ideas and customs, ° the hills. 
including cannibalism, head hunting, and the worship of 
ancestors; while the hard conditions of life on the hills 
and the struggle for land have tended to the maintenance of 
perpetual warfare between tribe and tribe and even between 
village and village.° 

Thus the population of the northern provinces of 


1 C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigerta, i, 19, 27 sq. 


of Nigeria, ii, 28 sq. 4 C.K. Meek, 7:4e Northern Tribes 
2 C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i, 23. 
of Nigeria, i. 4. 5 C.K. Meek, 7he Northern Tribes 


3 °C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i. 19 sg. 


I I ea 


ge de. WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


These Nigeria is extremely mixed in blood and diverse in culture. 
ean pee De negro element is everywhere predominant, but it has 
believe ina been modified through fusion with a Mediterranean or 
Supreme ied ~ : : 
God who’ Hamitic” element» represented “by: the Fulani, -and)awithea 
eae Semitic element, represented by the Arabs.' In the prin- 
' cipal tribes, including the Hausa, the Fulani, the Nupe, and 
the Yoruba, the majority of the people are comparatively 
civilized and profess the Mohammedan religion; but most 
of the lesser tribes, of which there are said to be over two 
hundred and fifty, retain their old pagan religion.” Never- 
theless all these pagan tribes, however addicted to their 
primitive forms of heathendom, believe in the existence of a 
Supreme Ruler of the World, though they frankly admit 
that they know little or nothing of his divine attributes. 
Many of them conceive of the Supreme Being as a god who 
dwells in the sky, too far away for man to approach him 
directly, but with whom, nevertheless, the souls of dead 
ancestors, despite their attachment to earth, are in some 
mysterious fashion associated.’ 
In some Thus the Jukun, a tribe of the tall Nilotic or Hamitic 
mati eae type, who claim to be the earliest inhabitants of Bornu,’ 
ete believe that the Supreme God, whom they call Achidong, 
Achidong has charge of the souls of the dead, though apparently 
ee cl he is not himself a glorified ghost.2 On the other hand, 
he isassoci: among the Bachama, a pagan tribe which observes a form 
ria of totemism and recognizes the rule of female chiefs,° the 
with the Sky-god Pwa is also the tribal ancestor. Here, accordingly, 
Tae there would seem to be a definite connexion between the 
idea of the Sky-god and the worship of ancestors.’ In other 
tribes, again, the Supreme God is associated with, if indeed 
he is not actually a personification of, the Sun. He can be 
approached through the tutelary genius (dodo), who is 
usually the spirit of the founder either of the village or 
of the tribe. This guardian spirit is commonly personated 
by a living man, who conceals his identity under a mask 


1 C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i. 58,°79. 


of Nigeria, i. 24-27. 5 C.K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
2.C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, ii, 29 59. 

of Nigeria, i. 23. 6 C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
3 C.K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i. 87, 185, 220 sg. 

of Nigerta, li. 29. 7 C.K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 


4C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, ii. 30. 


Vv WORSDIPAOF, TIL SKY ANI WESTERIN CARICA’ (123 


or other disguise, such as a white ram’s skin thrown over 
his head, and who appears either periodically, as at the 
first gathering of the corn, or on special occasions, as when 

he is called upon to drive away disease or to admonish 
erring wives, which he does by night to the terror of the 
guilty or at all events accused women. But in the Berom 
and some other tribes people pray directly to the Sun-god, 
without the mediation of these mummers; in praying they 
hold up the palms of their hands to the great luminary.' 
The Mumbake also identify their high god Nyame with 
the Sun, but in practice they combine the worship of 
ancestors with the homage which they pay to the solar 
deity. For before they go out on their annual hunting 
drive they clean up the graves of their forefathers, and 
then lay down their weapons on the graves, beseeching 
the spirits of the dead to give them prowess with the 
weapons which their fathers had taught them how to use; 
and on the morning of the hunt the chief repairs with 
his elders to the holy grove, and there, holding up a sacred 
bough towards the sun, again implores the assistance of 
the ancestral spirits*® Under the name of Nan, Nen, or The 
Nyan the Sun is the Supreme God of the Angas, Yergum, Pane 
Pe, Montoil, and Sura, as well as of the Mumbake; and Nan, Nen, 
under the name of Yamba is recognized by many other aC ARES 
tribes as the god who dwells in the sky. Festivals are held 

in honour of Nan, and every year, among the Yergum, the 
chief descends to the ancestral tomb, and, taking up the 
skulls of his forefathers, calls on each in turn to intercede 
with Nan, that the great God, the Giver of Rain and Ripener 

of Crops, may grant an abundant harvest.* Here again, 
therefore, the worship of the Supreme Being is combined 
with the worship of ancestors, or rather the ancestors are 
regarded as the proper intercessors between God and man. 
That Nan is indeed looked upon as the Supreme Ruler 
of the world is shown by the willingness of the Angas to 
apply to him, and to him alone, the Moslem title of Allah ; 


1C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 3 C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
of Nigeria, ii. 30. As to the tutelary of Nigeria, i, 106. 
genius (dodo), see zd, li, 18-21. : 

2C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 4C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
of Nigeria, ii, 30. of Nigeria, ii. 30. 


124 WORSHIP OF, LHL SK YAN ARAICA CHAP, 


but under him they acknowledge the existence of various 
departmental deities, such as Kim, the god of war, Gwon or 
Bom, the god of justice and fertility, and a host of minor 
divinities’ — 


Among the Among these pagan tribes of Northern Nigeria the great 
pees of 2 Kky-god is regarded as the sole agent in creation. Thus the 
Northen Munshi believe that the Sky-god, whom they call Awondo, 
aed created the world and has power over all natural phenomena, 


Godis and that he is the author both of good and of evil. Sub- 
i. ordinate to him is a deity named Poro, to whom, however, 
Ay rather than to the Supreme God, the Munshi pay the 
sun but greater part of their devotions. They think that the Moon 
oftener igs Poro’s daughter, and that the Sun is his son, and they 
identified ‘ . : 
with him. believe in lesser gods of thunder, hunting, agriculture, and 
childbirth.” Thus the Munshi clearly distinguish the Sun 
from the Supreme God Awondo, since they believe the 
Supreme God to be the father of the Sun. Yet, we are 
informed that among the pagan tribes of this region the 
great Sky-god, the Supreme Being, is commonly identified 
with the Sun.2 “The Sun is their Supreme Deity, the All 
Father, the Giver of Rain, the Ripener of Crops, but so 
remote and otiose that he can only be approached through 
the host of intermediaries already described—the spirits of 
ancestors who dwell near him, and those nature spirits who 
are demi-gods and his servants. He is too far removed to 
need the propitiation of sacrifice ; but in times of stress his 
devotees vaguely hold out their hands to him in prayer. 


The Sun-worshippers seem to regard the Sun primarily as 


the Ripener of Crops.” 4 
The power But among the northern tribes of Nigeria the power of 
of making . : ; 
rain shared S¢Nding rain was not a monopoly of the Sky-god; it was 


ie ia shared by many human beings and in particular by the king 
bethel of the Jukun, who passed for divine, or at all events for a 


one king demi-god, and was believed to control the rain supply.’ 
Oo 1i¢ 


Jukun. 1 C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, ii. 25. Among the Sun- 
of Nigeria, ii, 30. worshippers the author here names the 

2 C.K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes Kamuku, Berom, Galambe, Ganawuri, 

of Nigeria, ii. 30 sq. Mumbake, Vere, Tera, Seiyawa, Ka- 


a, d awe ing 
3 C.K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes FO artes ecding ea 


of Nigerta, ii, 31. ® C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
* C.K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i. 254 sq., ii. 163. 


Vv WORST MORSE SRV ANAWESTERN:APRICA 125 


Indeed, he retained the beneficent faculty of drawing down 
the water of heaven even after his death. When his corpse 
was carried out to burial, mounted on a horse, some millet 
was placed in his right hand and a gourd of water in his left. 
As the king rode away on‘his last journey to the far 
country, the assembled people set up a wail and besought 
their deceased monarch not to leave them thus bereft of 
corn and rain; so the horse’s head was turned back again, 
and the dead king’s hands were made to shower the corn 
and the water in the direction of his subjects. Many Jukun 
traditions ascribe to the king the power .of controlling the 
elements. Once, for example, when the armies of Bornu and 
the Jukun were set in array against each other, the king of 
Bornu caused the grass between the hosts to be set on fire, 
but the king of the Jukun at once called down frem heaven 
a shower of rain, which extinguished the conflagration.’ 

But the semi-divine character of the Jukun_ king The divine 
reveals itself in other ways than in rainmaking. His person abet ube 
is charged with a spiritual force which makes mere contact formerly 
with him dangerous; were he to touch the ground with his Poca? 


at the end 
hands or bare feet, the crops would be blighted.” But in of seven 
spite, or rather in consequence of, his divinity it used to Senta ha 
be deemed necessary to slay him ceremonially at the end he showed 
of seven years, in order that his sacred spirit should pass, as 
unimpaired by the weakness and decay of old age, to his 
successor on the throne.® Nay, even during the seven years, 

if he fell ill, or so much as sneezed or coughed, or was thrown 

from his horse, he might be put to death. The duty of 
slaying him devolved on the head councillor, who is known 

as the Abun Achuwo. The mode of execution or of 
sacrifice is said to have been strangling. The entrails 

were removed, and the body was preserved by some process 

which included fumigation. It is said that his brain, kidneys, 

and heart were dried and eaten by his successor, together 

with the oil that exuded from the corpse during the process 

of desiccation. The custom of killing the king at the end 


of seven years was broken down by a Jukun sovereign, 


1 ©, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i. 254, ii. 62 sg. 
of Nigeria, ii, 62. 3 C, K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
2-C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes of Nigeria, i. 255. 


The reason 
for the 
custom of 
regicide, 


The Edo- 
speaking 
people of 
Benin 
believe in 
a supreme 
Sky-god 
called Osa 
or 
Osalobula. 


126 WORSHIP) OP TAE SHY AN ALRLCA CHAP. 


who enlisted a Hausa bodyguard to protect him against 
attack, and thereby succeeded in preserving his life and 
ruling over the kingdom for eleven years instead of seven. 
According to one tradition, he escaped death by entrapping 
and killing the three religious chiefs whose duty it was 
to slay the king.’ 

The custom of putting the king to death, either at 
the end of a fixed period or whenever he showed signs 
of bodily or mental decay, was by no means peculiar to 
the Jukun; it was practised by many other tribes of this 
region, including the Yorubas.” In all cases it was probably 
based on a belief in the divine character of the king and 
in the fatal consequences which would be entailed on the 
people and the land by the failure of his powers through 
age or natural infirmity.’ 


The Edo-speaking people of Benin, a province of Southern 
Nigeria, believe in a supreme deity, commonly called Osa or 
Osalobula, who lives in heaven. He is regarded as the creator 
of the world, and a myth is told in which Osanowa, or Osa 
of the house, has an evil counterpart, Osanoha, or Osa of 
the bush. Osanowa created man; Osanoha created animals. 
Osanoha also made a house of sickness, in which were all 
diseases. When men and women, on their way from heaven 
to earth, came near that house, rain fell and drove them for 


1C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
of Nigeria, ii. 60. 


2 C. K. Meek, Zhe Northern Tribes 
of Nigeria, il. 59-63. 


3 The custom has been described and 
discussed by me in Zhe Golden Bough, 
Part III. Zhe Dying God, pp. 9 599. 
The latest example of this wide- 
spread African practice is reported 
from Uha, a district of Tanganyika 
Territory, at the north-eastern end of 
Lake Tanganyika. See Capt. C. H. B. 
Grant, ** Uha in Tanganyika Territory,” 
The Geographical Journal, November 
1925) pit'419 22 cuitan ise never 
allowed to die, nor is he buried in the 
ground. When 7 extremis, he is 
either strangled or his neck twisted by 
whosoever is present at the moment. 
Pandemonium reigns in the village at 


the death, and every one flees, driving 
away all beasts and seizing any article 
they can lay hands on. The Bihi (who 
are said to be the children of certain 
slave women) alone remain, and take 
charge of the body, and seize all stock, 
etc., left behind. A white cow is 
killed and the skin removed entire, the 
horns being detached from the skin. 
The body is placed in this skin with 
the head in the head of the skin, and 
the arms and legs in the four legs of 
the skin. The skin is sewn up, and 
the whole is dried over fires which are 
fed with milk. When dry, the body 
is placed in a canoe-shaped wooden 
trough, the whole sewed up in a cow- 
hide, and carried to the burial-place of 
the sultans, and is there placed on 
trestles, and a hut built over it.” See 
also below, p. 188 note 4. 


Vv WORSHIP OF. THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA. 127 


shelter into it. Thus sickness came to the earth. And 
because the wicked Osanoha was the creator of animals, man 
became their enemy, and so, whenever he sees an animal, he 
kills it. Another explanation of the enmity between Osanowa 
and Osanoha is that they agreed to reckon up and compare 
their riches, whereupon it was found that the children of 
Osanoha were more numerous than the children of Osanowa ; 
wherefore the two have been enemies ever since.’ 

Though Osa, as a rule, receives no regular sacrifices, yet 
he is far from being the ordinary type of otiose creator, 
remote from mankind and indifferent to their welfare. He 
figures largely in the folk-tales of the people, and his name 
is constantly on their lips. His usual emblem, a long pole The 
with white cloth attached to it, is to be seen in nearly every Fes 
village.” In some places Osa is represented by a pot. In 
Okpe his representative is a tree with a white cloth tied 
round it. Though Osa is the one persistent figure in the 
Edo pantheon, the natives in some places have only a vague 
idea of his personality. Some of them say that he looks like 
a cloud, which is natural enough ina Sky-god. Over a great 
part of the Edo country there are no images of gods.° At Annual 
Idumowina, a village a few miles north of Benin, a goat pie 
is annually sacrificed to Osa and its blood poured on his him. 
shrine.‘ 

The Ibibios are a tribe of negroes who inhabit Eket, a Among the 
district of Southern Nigeria bounded on the south by the sea SUE yi 
and on the east by the Cross River. In their pantheon at pantheon is 
the present day Obumo, the Thunder-god, is usually regarded ae 
as the principal deity and the creator of all things. His home Sey iD 
is in the sky, and, being too far off to trouble much about Abassi, 
the petty affairs of men, he leaves these in the hands of Beas 
lesser powers, reserving to himself the ordering of the great Being. 
events of the year, such as the regular succession of the 
seasons.” Some people, however, distinguish Obumo, the 
Thunderer, from Abassi, the Supreme God, the maker of 
heaven and earth, and allege that Thunder and Lightning 
are only the messengers whom Abassi sends to kill witches, 


1 N. W. Thomas, Anthropological 3. N. W. Thomas, of. cit. i. 25 59. 
Report on the Edo-speaking Peoples of 4 N. W. Thomas, of. czt. 1. 30 59. 
Nigeria (London, 1910), i. 24 sg. 5 P, Amaury Talbot, L2fe zx Southern 

2 N. W. Thomas, of. ct. i. 24. Nigeria (London, 1923), p. 7. 


Ika 
Abassi, 

‘* Mother 
OfGod 
the wife of 
Obunio. 


Human 
sacrifices 
offered to 
Abassi 
Obumo, 
the 
‘Thunderer. 


WORSHIP OF THE SE YIN ATTICA CHAP. 


128 


to strike trees, and to give warning of the approach of rain." 
It is said that Obumo once dwelt on earth, but that long 
ago he ascended to the sky; from his home in the clouds 
he still sends forth his messengers, who are the Rain, the 
Storm-wind, the Thunder-bolt, and the Fish-eagle. The 
Ibibios believe that at the beginning of the rainy season 
Obumo descends in the form of a fish-eagle, to woo his 
terrestrial wife Eka Abassi.” But according to an esoteric 
doctrine, revealed only to the initiated, this goddess Eka 
Abassi is not only the wife but the mother of Obumo and 
the true head of the Ibibio pantheon. Her name appears to 
mean “ Mother of God”, and she is said to be regarded as 
the divine Creatress, the great First Cause. She is thought to 
have conceived Obumo, her first-born, without the assistance 
of a husband.’ In some places this great goddess is identified 
with Isong, the Earth.* But though Obumo, or Abassi 
Obumo, is now commonly regarded as the divine husband 
of Eka Abassi, some traces exist of a belief in an older god 
called Ete Abassi, that is, Father God, who was the original 
husband of Eka Abassi. At the present day, however, he 
has been superseded by Abassi Obumo, as the Greek Cronus 
was superseded by Zeus. Abassi is generally . represented 
by a small clay pot, filled with water, in which is placed an 
armlet and sometimes an egg.° , 

To Abassi Obumo, the Thunderer, human sacrifices were 
always offered at the annual festival of the New Yams. 
Bark, stripped from piassava palms, was wrapped round the 
victim so as to envelop him completely, and he was then 
tied to the trunk of a very tall tree and left there to perish. 
At Atebio, a town in the centre of the Eket District, may 
still be seen several trees which in former days were set 
apart for thus bearing human sacrifices offered to the God of 
Thunder.® Palm-trees are believed to be associated in some 
mysterious fashion with the Thunder-god.’ Whenever the 


1 PP. A. Talbot, Life tu Southern 
Nigeria, p. 255. 

4 sPAA® Talbot, (op. ct parts” CAS 
to the fish-eagle, compare 7d. pp. 7, 14. 

BaPo TA Ml al bots wope 2cern Dota a anos 
11; D. Amaury Talbot (Mrs. Talbot), 
Woman's Mysteries of a Primitive 
People, the Ibtbios of Southern Nigeria 


(London, etc., 1915), p. 13. 

# Pp, A. Talbot, Lzfe i Southern 
Nigerta, p. 13. 

5 Pp. A. Talbot, Zzfe in Southern 
Nigeria, p. 13. 

6 Pi vA. . Falbot; “ZLi/e e120 Sauzhern 
Nigeria, p. 17. 

7 P. A, Talbot, of. czt. p..18. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA 129 


rich, orange-hued clusters did not ripen, or even when the 
crop was small, the people were ordered to search the country- 
side till they found a leper whose face had been eaten away 
by the ravages of disease. Him they dragged to the nearest 
palm-grove and bound by waist and throat to the tallest tree, 
his arms tied round the trunk as though he were clasping it. 
Through both feet were driven long hooked pegs, sharply 
pointed, which pinned the victim to the ground. There 
he was doomed to stay, enduring intolerable agonies from 
wounds, hunger, and thirst in the full glare of a tropical sun, 
till death mercifully released him from his sufferings. After 
such a sacrifice the palms were supposed to bear fruit 
abundantly. Why a leper was chosen for the victim, we 
are not told. Perhaps his pallid hue was thought to mark 
him out, among a black race, as a sacrifice peculiarly accept- 
able to a god of the sky. We have seen that among these 
negroes white is often the colour prescribed in the worship 
of the Sky-god. 

Priests of the Thunder-God Obumo are supposed to 
possess the power of calling down the lightning on the 
house of any man against whom they cherish a grudge.” 
In some parts of the district a curious means is taken to 
prevent a young child from fearing thunder and lightning. 
Electric fishes are caught and placed in a bowl during a 
storm. After they have been left there some time, the water 
is poured off and given to the child to drink. Thus in- 
oculated with electricity, the child will naturally have no 
fear of lightning and so will enjoy the special protection 
of the Thunder-god. Under the shelter of his wing it is 
confidently anticipated that the little one will live to be rich 
and powerful.’ 

The people of Calabar, the ences of the Ibibios on 
the east, acknowledge a creator and supreme governor of all 
things, whom, like the Ibibios, they name Abassi. In the 
yard of every house there used to be built a small circular 
mound on which were placed a few shallow dishes of earthen- 
ware and some old bones, which commonly included a 
human skull. This domestic shrine was called zsu Adbassz, 

RICE Ae alot, sO. cif.p. 3. 3 Pp. A. Talbot, of, cet. p. 18. 
2 Above, pp. 113, 127. 4 P, A. Talbot, of. czt, p. 19. 
VOL. I ; K 


Priests of 
the 
‘Thunder- 
god can 
call down 
lightning. 


Worship of 
the 
Supreme 
God Abassi 
among the 
people of 
Calabar. 


130 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


that is, “the Face or Presence of Abassi”, and on a certain 
day of the native week, which comprises eight days, the 
worshippers used to approach the deity at his shrine, 
beseeching him, as the case might be, either to benefit 
themselves or to harm their neighbours, and supporting 
their petition by a libation of water poured into one of the 
vessels, This practice, however, appears to have fallen into 
desuetude even before the establishment of a Christian 
mission in Calabar, and the homage of the native pagans is 
now chiefly paid to the various subordinate deities known 
as zdems. One of these, called Ndem Efik, is a sort of 
tutelary deity of the country. The man appointed to take 
charge of his worship bore the title of King Calabar, and in 
past times probably united the regal to the priestly power. 
As tribute he received the skins of all leopards killed in 
the country, and any slave who took refuge at the shrine 
belonged to the deity. The office, however, imposed certain 
restrictions on the incumbent, for example, he might not eat 
in the presence of anybody, and he was prohibited from 
engaging in traffic. On account of these and other dis- 
abilities, when the last of the titular kings died, nobody 
was found willing to undertake the burden of royalty, and the 
kingship or priesthood became extinct.’ History presents 
many instances of a royal and priestly office similarly crushed 
under the weight of the fetters rivetted on its bearers. 
Worship of Among the negro tribes of the Obubura Hill Disttict in 
a Sky-god ; : 
Abassior OUthern Nigeria, on the borders of Cameroons, the great 
nes in god who lives in the sky is known by several names. The 
Obubura Efiks, who are the natives of Calabar, call him Abassi; and 
Direct, this name is, heard in many parts of the Obubura Hill 
District. The Indems, one of the tribes of the district, call 
him Osowo. He is the greatest of allthe gods. Offerings to 
him are deposited just outside the village, either where two 
or more roads meet, or by the side of a single road.. They 
generally consist of small portions of food and drink, and 
are set on the ground in potsherds or calabashes, or are 
placed in a basket which is inserted in the fork of a pole 
1 H. Goldie, Calabar and its Mis-  god’s name Adasz. For the sake of 


ston (Edinburgh and London, 1890), uniformity I have adopted the form 
pp- 42 sg. The author spells the great  Adassz. 


Vv WOLSAIP SOP LAL SAVIN WES TINN | ALRICA  ~131 


set upright in the earth. These offerings are made by, 


or on behalf of, sick people, who hope that Osowa himself 


will eat the food and heal them, or that he will give it to 
such of their parents or friends as live with him, and so 
effect the desired cure. Palm-wine and gin are offered to 
the deity in shells, which the natives find in the forest and 
use as cups. Besides these communal offering-places out- 
side the village, there is generally in every courtyard some 
kind of structure at which the Supreme Deity is worshipped. 
Thus in a courtyard at Obubura the temple of Abassi 
consists merely of a bundle of bamboo poles lashed together 
and set upright, with stones and bones lying at its foot. 
The natives believe that Osowo can kill men, and also that 
he sends the spirit into new-born babes.’ Thus they look 
on this Sky-deity as the source both of life and of death. 
No wonder that they revere him as the greatest of the gods. 


Among the Ekoi, who inhabit the Oban District of Belief in 


Southern Nigeria on the border of Cameroons, two great 
deities are recognized, the Sky-god Obassi Osaw, and the 
learth-god Obassi Nsi; but besides them the people believe 
in countless hordes of inferior spirits, who people the trees, 
the lakes, the rocks, and the rivers; the forest teems with 
these dreadful beings; its shadow lies heavy on_ all. 
Questioned as to the respective characters of the Sky-god 
and the Earth-god, an Ekoi man, who knew no English and 
was a mine of folk-lore, declared that the Iarth-god Obassi 
Nsi was kind and good, but that the Sky-god Obassi Osaw 
was fierce and cruel. Asked how he knew that Obassi Osaw 
was fierce and cruel, he replied, “ Becausc he tries to kill us 
with thunder and in many other ways. Also, he is not so 
loving and near to us as Obassi Nsi, for he cannot receive 
our offerings. We sometimes throw things up into the air 
for him, but they always fall back again to the carth. 
Obassi Nsi draws them down; that shows he is more 
powerful.” To the question how he knew that the Earth- 
god Obassi Nsi was good, the same man answered, “He 
never shows us terrifying things as Osaw does, such as 


1 Charles Partridge, Cross River 2 P. Amaury Talbot, 72 the Shadow 
Natives (London, 1905), pp. 281 sy., of the Lush (London, 1912), p. 13. 
compare pp. 273, 254. 


the Sky- 
god Obass! 
Osaw and 
the Earth- 
god Obassi 
Nsi among 
the Eko, 


The Earth 
conceived 
asa 
mother. 


Trees 
sacred to 
the two 
deities, 


Prayers 
to Obassi 
Osaw. 


132 WORSHIP*OF THE SKVAN ALAICA CHAP, 


thunder or lightning, nor the sun which blazes so hot as to 
frighten us sometimes, and the rain which falls so heavily at 
others as to make us think there will be no more sunshine. 
Nsi ripens our yams, cocos, plantains, etc., which we plant in 
the ground. When we are dead we are buried in the ground, 
and go to the world under the earth, to our Father Obassi 
Nsiy 

But while the Earth is now personified as a god and a 
father, enough legends and fragments of ritual survive to 
hint, if not to prove, that formerly Earth was conceived as a 
goddess anda mother.” Indeed, the same Ekoi man who had 
referred to Obassi Nsi as “our Father”, on further reflection 
said, “I think that Obassi Nsi is really our mother and 
Osaw our father. For whenever we make offerings we are 
taught to say Nta Obassi (Lord Obassi) and Ma Obassi 
(Lady Obassi). Now I think that the lord is Osaw, and the 
lady. Nsi. Surely Nsi must be a woman, and our mother, for 
it is well known to all people that a woman has the tenderest 
heart.”* Thus we should be brought back to the ancient 
and widespread myth of Father Sky and Mother Earth. 

The Ekoi believe that Obassi Osaw and Obassi Nsi made 
all things between them. At first they dwelt together, but 
after a while they agreed to separate and have different 
lands. Obassi Osaw fixed his dwelling place in the sky, 
while Obassi Nsi came down to earth and lived there.* 

In the central courtyard of almost every house is set 
a little group, consisting usually of a growing tree, carved 
post, and sacrificial stone, sacred to one or other of the two 
great deities. By far the greater number of these are 
dedicated to the Earth-god Obassi Nsi, as is shown by the 
coco yams planted, or laid in a small heap, close by. Those 
of Obassi Osaw can easily be distinguished by the clump of 
epiphytic ferns growing on the tree trunk.® 

Before beginning the work of the day every man or 
woman who still clings to the ancient custom takes a 
calabash and washes in the central courtyard. Then, when 
the sun rises, they lift up their eyes to it and pray, saying, 

1 P. Amaury Talbot, Zz the Shadow 3 P. A. Talbot, of. cz. p. 16. 


of the Bush, pp. 16 sg. 4 P, A. Talbot, of. czt. pp. 70 sg. 
2 P. A, Talbot, of, ct. p. 16. 5 P. A. Talbot, of. ct. pp. 21. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA 133 


“Sun of morning, sun of evening, let me be free from 
danger to-day”. This they do, because they think that the 
sun is charged by Obassi to receive all prayers offered on 
earth and to carry them to his home in heaven. Next the 
suppliant takes water in his right hand and holds it up on 
high, calling on the name of the great Sky-god, Obassi 
Osaw. Next he takes water in his left hand and pours it 
out on the ground, thus committing himself to the keeping 
of the great Earth-god Obassi Nsi.' 

The two deities enter into countless folk-tales, from Story of th 
which many details as to their nature.and attributes may be UE tases 
gleaned.” One such story tells how a poor boy looked up at wishing- 
the sun, and pointing eggs towards it cried out, “ Male God ! ¢o* "0" 
Female God! will you open the gate for me?” Then the Osaw. 
eggs slipped from his hand, and out of each flew a small 
chick. The chicks surrounded the boy and flew with him 
up to the sky, to the kingdom of Obassi Osaw. There he 
saw the great Sky-god in his seat of judgment and the 
ghosts of the dead passing before him, amongst them the 
ghost of the boy’s own dead mother. When all had passed 
by, Obassi Osaw gave the boy a box out of which he could 
get all that he wanted only by wishing for it. With this 
box the boy returned to earth, but the fatal curiosity of a 
woman cut short all his hopes of happiness and even his life.*’ 

Another story tells how the Sky-god Obassi Osaw Obassi 
designed to cheer mankind with the prospect of immortality, either 
and how his kindly intention was frustrated through the gross cause of 

human 

misconduct of a duck. It happened in this way. In_ the montality ; 
beginning of the world, when men died, they were carried in Story of the | 
a sort of dream to the abode of Obassi Osaw in heaven. If messen- 
the deity thought fit, he would make the dead man wake ane: 
from his dream and stand up before him. Then he would and the 
restore him to life and send him back to earth. But such ““™ 
men on their return could never tell what had happened to 
them. One day Obassi Osaw thought to himself, “Men fear 

to die. They do not know that perhaps they may come to 

life again. I will tell them that such a thing may happen ; 

then they will have less dread of death.” So he stood up 


Pore BOL, Of, c#?. Pp. 2I'S7, 2 PLA. Talbot, of, cz7, pp. 18-20. 
SO Pr Ay Laluot, of. 'cif, p. 21, 


How the 
first fire 
was stolen 
by a 
cunning 
boy from 
the house 
of Obassi 
Osaw in 
heaven. 


134 WORSHIP OLS TALE SIOY SV ALSO CHAP. 


in his house in the sky and called a frog and a duck before 
him. To the frog he said, “Go to earth and say to the 
people, When a man dies, it is the end of all things; he 
shall never live again”. To the duck he said, “Go tell the 
earth folk that if a man dies he may come to life again”. 
Then he led them a little way, and showed them the road 
down to earth, saying, “ Take my message. Duck, you may 
go to the left hand. Frog, keep tothe right.” So frog kept 
on till he came to earth. He told the first people he met 
the message which Obassi Osaw had sent, the message 
that for man death is the end of all things. In due time 
the duck also reached earth. She came to a place where 
people had been making palm oil, and she began to gulp 
it down. So greedily did she swill it that she forgot all about 
the message which God had charged her to deliver, the 
message that the dead may come to life again. Thus men 
never heard the glad tidings of immortality. That is why, 
when once a man dies, we never see him again. It is all the 
fault of the duck. She forgot the message, and of course 
we are bound to go by the one which the frog brought us.’ 

Another story relates how a cunning boy stole fire from 
the house of Obassi Osaw in heaven and brought it down to 
earth. It was the first fire on earth, for though Obassi Osaw 
made everything, he had not given fire to mankind. Indeed, 
when the boy first went to heaven and asked Obassi to give 
him fire for the use of people on earth, the deity was very 
angry and sent the boy about his business. However, on a 
second visit to the sky, the urchin contrived to purloin 
a glowing brand, which he wrapped in plantain stems and 
leaves to smother the smoke, and then hurried down to earth 
with it. When Obassi Osaw looked down from his house in 
the sky, he saw the smoke curling up from the earth. So he 
sent his eldest son down to ask the boy if it was he who had 
stolen the fire. The boy confessed the theft, and as a punish- 
ment he was obliged to go lame for the rest of his natural 
life. He it was who first brought fire to earth from Obassi 
Osaw’s home in the sky.” 


Vy PTAs Talbot, Zz the Shadow of Old Testament, i. 58). 
thé Bush, p. 229. I have reported 
this story elsewhere (/o/k-lore in the 2 P. A. Talbot, of. cz¢. pp. 370 sg. 


v WORSAIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA 135 


The Ekoi are not confined to Southern Nigeria, a con- TheEkoiof 
siderable body of them inhabits the-district of Ossidinge in [2™%0" 


believe in 
the neighbouring province of Cameroons, to the south of the a supreme 


Cross River." The district is of some importance ethno- nthe 
logically, since the boundary between the true negroes and 
the Bantu tribes appears to run through it. Of the seven 
tribes which inhabit it, six, including the Ekoi, are Bantus , 
one only, the Bokis, belongs to the true negro type.2. The 
natives refer all events to the Supreme God, whom they call 
Obashi, though in prayer they address him as Ewerok-babi. 
Of his form they seem to have no idea, but they assume 
that he dwells above the clouds and reveals himself to men 
in dreams. They constantly repeat, “God tells us in dreams 
what we are todo”. On this belief rests their faith in the 
efficacy of simples. God is supposed to impart to every 
man in a dream the name and the place in the forest of the 
magical plant which will answer his special need. Next day 
the man must find the plant in the forest, fasten it to a pole, 
and set the pole up in front of his farm. If after that any- 
body steals anything from the farm, the plant possesses the 
-power of making the thief sick even at a distance. Besides 
this great god Abashi the natives recognize the existence of 
a series of minor deities or demons, who mediate between 
God and man and hover invisible in the air.’ 


The Fan or Fang, a large tribe in French Congo, believe The Fan 


in a great deity called Nzame or Nsambe, the Lord of 2 Bregen 
ongo 


Heaven and Earth, who created or gave birth to all living believe in a 


: ’ -, great deity, 
things, and set in order the world as we at present see it. the Tord 


For a time Nsambe continued to be on intimate terms with of Heaven 
; . and Earth, 
mankind, whom he had created; he plays a great part in the whom they 


myths and legends of the people. But after a while he left cal! Nzame 


f ; 4 or Nsambe. 
them and removed to a distance. The reasons which induced 


him to take this step are nowhere clearly stated ; hence his 
departure has somewhat the appearance of a caprice. Be 
that as it may, his disappearance was so sudden and 

1 A. Mansfeld, Urwald Dokumente, people are divided into two unequal 
vier Jahren unter den Crossflussnegern parts by the boundary which separates 
Kameruns (Berlin, 1908), pp. 7 sgg. the Cameroons from Southern Nigeria”, 


Compare P. Amaury Talbot, /z fhe 2 A. Mansfeld, of. cét. p. 7. 
Shadow of the Bush, p. 1, ‘*‘ The Ekoi 3 A. Mansfeld, of. cz¢. pp. 210 5g. 


Story of 
the origin 
of death : 
Nsambe, 
the chamel- 
eon and 
the lizard. 


Belief of 
the Bafioti 
of Loango 
ina 
Supreme 
Being, 
called 
Zambi 

or Nsambi. 


136 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


clandestine that one fine day men found themselves aban- 
doned by him and destitute of the bare necessaries of life, so 
that they were obliged to send messengers after him to request 
that he would provide them with food and fire: In another 
version of the story Nsambe departed bag and baggage, 
taking all the animals with him in his train; but after a 
time, bethinking him of the duties he owed to his creatures, 
mankind, he despatched the animals to them with a message 
from him and a supply of fire and other necessaries. What- 
ever the causes of his alienation from his creatures, the 
Creator Nsambe has now retired into the background ; he 
has become a purely mythical figure rather than an object of 
worship ; the German writer who has given us the fullest 
account of him compares him to the head of a great com- 
mercial firm, who has retired from the active management 
of affairs, which he leaves to his subordinates, though he 
retains a general control over the business, and his name still 
figures on the brass plate at the door.’ 

Like other African gods who have retired from business, 
the Nsambe of the Fans is associated with a story which 


professes to’ explain the origin of human mortality. It is 


said that he first sent the chameleon to men with a message | 
that nobody would die, and that there should be no such 
thing as poverty or ill-luck. Afterwards apparently he 
changed his mind and sent a lizard with a message that 
all men would die. But the lizard outran the slow-paced 
chameleon and brought the fatal tidings of mortality to 
mankind before they received the glad news of immortality 
from.the chameleon. That is the reason why men continue 
to die down to this day.” This story, which lays the blame 
of human mortality on the chameleon is very widespread in 
Africa. We shall meet with it again later on.’ 

To the south of the Fan and of French Congo, the same 
ubiquitous deity meets us again in Loango, where, to all 
appearance, he has been long at home. The natives of 
Loango call themselves Bafoti, that is, the Dark People. 

1 G, Tessmann, Deze Pangwe (Berlin, * G. Tessmann, Die Pangwe, ii, 30. 
1913), ii, 12-19. The name of the 3 See Folk-lore tn the Old Testa- 
Fan tribe is given in a great variety ment, i. 63 sgq. 


of forms by our authorities, Mr, Tess- * Below, pp. 173, LZ 7aeaziare ake 
mann adopts the form Pangwe. 258, 672. 


v WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN WESTERN AFRICA 137 


They belong to the great Bantu race, which stretches across 
Africa from sea to sea.’ As to their religion the Abbé 
Proyart, who wrote a history of Loango in the second half of 
the eighteenth century, informs us that the natives “acknow- 
ledge a Supreme Being, who, having no origin, is himself 
the origin of all things. . They believe he has created all 
that is fine, all that is good in the universe; that being by 
nature just, he loves justice in others, and severely punishes 
fraud and perjury. They call him Zambi; they take his 
name in testimony of the truth; and they regard perjury as 
one of the greatest of crimes; they even pretend that a 
species of malady, called Zambz-a-n-pongou is the punishment 
of it; and they say, when they see one attacked with it, 
‘There’s a perjured man’. Besides this just and perfect 
God, they admit another, to whom they give quite different 
attributes ; the first created all, the latter would destroy all; 
he delights in the evil which he causes among men; it is he 
who counsels them to injustice, perjury, thefts, poisonings, 
and all crimes; he is the author of accidents, losses, diseases, 
barrenness of land, in a word, of all the miseries which afflict 
humanity, and even of death itself; they call him Zambz-a- 
n’bz, God of wickedness. Here may be perceived ”, proceeds 
the pious and orthodox Abbé, “the error of the Mani- 
chaeans touching the Divinity. It appears natural enough 
that man who is not enlightened with the torch of revelation, 
considering the evils of all kinds that beset him from his 
entrance into the world to his departure, should study to 
discover the cause, and that, ignorance being one of the 
greatest disorders of his soul, he should be bewildered in 
his conjectures on matters so much above his faculties. . . . 
They who know only the theology of the country, persuaded 
that the good God will always be sufficiently favourable, 
think only of appeasing the God of wickedness ; some, to 
render him propitious to them, never eat fowls or game; 
others eat only certain sorts of fish, fruits, or vegetables ; not 
one among them but makes profession of abstaining all his 
lifetime from some sort of nourishment. The only way of 


1 Die Loango Expedition, ausgesandt 187, Dritte Abteilung, Zweite Halfte, 
von der deutschen Gesellschaft zur von Dr. E, Pechuél-Loesche (Stuttgart, 
Erforschung Aquatorial-Afrikas, 1873-1907), pp. I sg. 


Powers 
ascribed to 
Nsambi. 


How 
Nsambi 
created 
men, and 
being 
offended 
at them 
retired 
from earth 
to heaven. 


138 WORSHIP, OF THE SK VIIN APEICGA CHAP, 


making him offerings is to let die, under their feet, some 
shrubs laden with their fruits ; the banana tree is that which 
they consecrate to him in preference.” * 

About a hundred years after Proyart wrote his history 
of Loango, the country was carefully examined by a German 
scientific expedition, and the members of it found a belief in 
the same great god still current among the natives. They 
tell us that Nsambi, as they spell the name of the deity, is 
believed to have power over everything. He, or his vital 
and creative energy, is in the earth, the water, the air, the 
plants, animals, and men. When he wills, he knows the 
thoughts as well as the deeds of men ; he sees them, whether 
they sleep or wake, under the open sky, in their huts, by 
day and by night. He sends the rain that the plantations 
may flourish and yield their fruits to mankind, when men 
are good. He sends drought, famine, pestilence, and other 
evils, that men may suffer, sicken and die, when they are 
wicked.” 

Whether Nsambi created everything that exists, the 
natives do not know for certain: Yet, they «conceive 
it possible, indeed some of them stoutly assert that he 
created land and water, plants and animals, and likewise 
sun, moon, and stars. The story of the creation of man- 
kind is variously told. According to one account, Nsambi 
moulded men out of potter’s earth mixed with the blood 
of animals. But men in the early ages of the world were 
no better than they are nowadays. They wrangled and 
fought, and did evil. Nsambi was grieved at that, and 
forbade them many things, But bad men did not heed his 
prohibitions. So, to punish them, Nsambi sent drought, 
famine, and pestilence, and many of the sinners died. 
Many of the righteous also perished, and justly enough, 
because they had not kept an eye on the wicked. So man- 
kind at last, driven to despair, called on Nsambi for help. 
He came, but they all shrieked at him laying the blame 


von der deutschen Gesellschaft sur 
Erforschung Aquatorial-Afrikas, 1873- 
1876, Dritte Abteilung, Zweite Halfte, 


1 Proyart, ‘* History .of Loango, 
Kakongo, and other kingdoms in 
Africa”, in J. Pinkerton’s General 


Collection of Voyages and Travels, xvi. 
(London, 1814) pp. 593 sg. Proyart’s 
History was published at Paris in 1776. 

2 Die Loango-Expedition, ausgesanadt 


von Dr, E. Pechueél-Loesche (Stuttgart, 
1907), pp. 266 sg. 

3 E. Pechuél-Loesche, of. cit. p. 
267. 


WIP ORS AIP OP THE. SIV ING WESTERN AFRICA 139 


on each other and overwhelming him so with their petitions 
that the din and clamour were deafening. At last the deity 
grew tired of the hubbub. He fell into a passion, and 
went awdy and never came back. At the present day, if 
you ask a native where is the abode of the deity, he will 
spread out his fingers and point upwards, at the same time 
stretching out his arms in all directions, thereby signifying 
that Nsambi dwells in heaven. But whether he resides in a 
house or camps at large in the celestial regions appears to 
be a matter of uncertainty. Many people opine that he 
lives in the style of a wealthy gentleman with plenty of 
servants to wait on him, and perhaps in possession of wives 
and children. But after all who knows ?1? 

As in the days of. the Abbé Proyart, some natives of The Good 

Loango distinguish the Good God (NVsambz-a-mbote) from eit 
the Bad God (Msambt-a-mbi), and say that the Good God God. 
does no evil to men, it is only the Bad God that harms 
them. Others, however, are of opinion that there is 
only one great god, Nsambi, who does good or evil to 
men according to their works. More frequently than either 
Nsambi-a-mbote or Nsambi-a-mbi does the name Nsambi- 
a-mpungu occur on the lips of the people. It seems to 
mean Nsambi the Mighty, zpungu being a descriptive epithet Nsambi-a- 
applied to the deity. The same word is used in the sense VPuNs™ 
of an important man, the father of a large family, an effective the Mighty. 
speaker, an outstanding personality. But according to 
another interpretation and tradition Mpungu is the: father 
of Nsambi, and the expression Nsambi-a-Mpungu signifies 
Nsambi, the son of Mpungu. Some say that Mpungu sent 
his son, Nsambi, down to earth to look after mankind, and 
to comfort the mourners. The son.did good to men, and 
when his father Mpungu despatched Hunger to gnaw at 
the bellies of mortals, Nsambi caught him, so that the fruits 
of the earth flourished again, and people had plenty to eat. 
Then Mpungu sent Sickness ; but Nsambi warded her off or 
healed the sick. At last Mpungu sent Death, who struck 
men down and robbed them of their breath; for he was 
strong like Mpungu himself.” 


1 E. Pechuél-Loesche, of. cit. pp. 2 E. Pechuél-Loesche, of. czt. pp. 
268 sq. 269 sg. 


140 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


Nsambi is But in spite of some confusion and discrepancy in the 
thought t : : 
ele. accounts of Nsambi, he is generally accorded the rank of a 


pay little 

heed to Supreme Berng, who exists invisibly everywhere and con- 
human . : 
affairs, trols the forces of nature either personally or by the inter- 
hence vention of his representatives. Towards mankind his attitude 


people are ° 
generally On the whole is one of ‘nonchalance and neglect. Yet 


pate does he sometimes interpose in human affairs with a heavy 
hand. Certainly nothing that concerns mankind escapes 
his vigilance or happens without his ordinance. On their 
side men do not worship him ; no ceremony is performed in 
his honour, no sacrifice is offered to him. As a deity he 
appears to stand quite aloof from human life. He is too 
great and too far away to trouble himself much about the 
weal or woe of his creatures. And they repay his lack of 
sympathy with a corresponding indifference. But in times 
of great and general distress they recognize his handiwork 
and speak of him with a certain awe. ‘“ Nsambi is angry, 
he is destroying us”, they cry, but they do not turn to him 
directly for help and pity; they look to some intermediary 
for an alleviation of their sufferings.’ 
Only in Nevertheless from time to time in dangers and great 
Sages emergencies people feel their dependence on his divine 
theyac- power, acknowledge the working of his divine will, and 
nes commit their affairs to his divine keeping. A man who is 
and appeal sick and like to die, or who is anxious and troubled about 
to him. the issue of some undertaking that touches him deeply, will 
comfort himself by saying, “It is in Nsambi’s power”, or 
‘““Nsambi’s will be done”. When a boat is swept down the 
rapids of a rushing river, and the helmsman is adjured to 
do his utmost, he will answer with an upward look or 
gesture and the words, “It is Nsambi’s affair”. When a 
death has taken place, the survivors may console each other 
with the reflection that “ Nsambi has bidden him, has called 
him away”. Women, too, in the pangs of travail cry to 
Nsambi to have pity on them.? Finally, we are told that 
the belief in Nsambi has not been borrowed by the natives 
from Christian missionaries, since it is both older and more 
widely diffused than missionary activity.’ 


a Pechuel-Loesche, of. cz¢. p. 271. 3 -E. Pechuel-Loesche, of. c#f. p. 
2 E. Pechuél-Loesche, of, czt,p.272. 274. 


Vv WORSOIT OF pA PI’ VALLEY OF THE CONGO “141 


§ 2. The Worship of the Sky in the Valley of the Congo 


The great valley of the Congo is peopled by many Belief of 
tribes, the great majority of which belong to the Bantu Ur fates 
stock. Among them there is a general belief in the exist- Congo ina 
ence of a Supreme Being, the Creator of all things, who is enidine 
eternal and incapable of doing evil, but who at the same time Creator 
occupies so lofty a position that he does not busy himself a 
with the lot of his creatures. The general name for this 
great deity is Nzambi, though the precise form of the name 
varies somewhat with the dialect of the tribe. In Nzambi 
the black man personifies the first and universal cause of 
everything which he cannot understand or explain. For the 
most part Nzambi is conceived as a solitary being; but in 
the coast region of the Lower Congo, where the beliefs of 
the natives have lost something of their originality and have 
been modified by European influence, Nzambi has been 
-associated with a female companion or wife. Many tribes 
hold that Nzambi has created one or more divine beings of 
an inferior order, to whom he has granted very large powers, 
and who act as his deputies or vicars on earth. It is these 
deputy-deities, and not the great God himself, who keep 
up a certain intercourse with mortals, and in turn delegate 
their powers, either wholly or in part, to human beings, 
to animals, and even to inanimate objects, such as stones, 
rocks, trees, and. waters. The abode of Nzambi is not 
defined, it is everywhere and nowhere, it is in another world 
which the native does not picture to himself. If you press 
him for an answer, he shakes his head and says that the 
question makes his head ache.’ 

An experienced English missionary, the Rev. J. H. Rev. J. H. 
Weeks, who lived and worked for thirty years among the pan 
natives both of the Lower and the Upper Congo, tells us in Nzambi 
that “the name for a Supreme Being (Wzamb) is known all 2m0ns 1° 
over the Lower Congo, and indeed, among all the tribes the Congo. 
throughout the watershed of the Congo river; but the 
knowledge concerning him is very vague. He is regarded 
as the principal creator of the world and all living creatures ; 


1 Notes Analytiques sur les Collections Ethnographiques du Musée du Congo, 
i, (Bruxelles, 1902-1906) p. 146. 


The 
conception 
of Nzambi 
is of native 
origin. 


Various 
names for 
the 
Supreme 
Being in 
the valley of 
the Congo. 


142 WORSHT POLAT Sh YIN AAT hy Gea CHAP. 


and it is thought that after His work of creation He with- 
drew Himself, and, since then, He has taken little, if any 
further interest in the world and its inhabitants. He is 
spoken of among the natives as being strong, rich, and good 
—=so good that He will not hurt them, hence no sacrifices 
are offered to Him, no prayers to Him ever pass their lips, 
and they never worship Him. As the Supreme One He is 
very remote from them, unconcerned in their welfare, and 
harmless, therefore they consider that there is no need for 
them to trouble about Him. We never found an atheist 
among them, but their theism is of a very hazy quality.” ! 

Mr. Weeks is clearly of opinion that the conception of 
Nzambi as a Supreme Being is of purely native origin and 
not borrowed by the blacks from the whites. He says: 
“In each case the natives’ ideas of the Supreme Being were 
gathered and noted long before our teaching had influenced 
their views or increased their knowledge concerning Him. 
Before we could preach our views we had to learn their 
language, and while learning their language we necessarily 
received—in the definitions of the words we were learning 
from them—their ideas of that great Being who created the 
world. We found their knowledge of Him was scarcely 
more than nominal, and no worship was ever paid to Him. 

“On the Lower Congo He is called Vzambz, or by His 
fuller title Vsambi a mpungu; no satisfactory root word has 
yet been found for Vzamdér, but for mpungu there are sayings 
and proverbs that clearly indicate its meaning as, most of 
all, supreme, highest, and Vzamdbt a mpungu as the Being 
most High or Supreme.” 

“On the Upper Congo among the Bobangi folk the 
word used for the Supreme Being is WVyambe; among the 
Lulanga people, WVsakomba; among the Boloki, Mambe ; 
among the Bopoto people it is Lzbanza, which word is also 
well known among the Boloki people, and was probably 
introduced by slaves from Bopoto. At Yakusu, near Stanley 


1 John H. Weeks, Among the including nine years at San Salvador 


Primitive Bakongo (London, 1914), and Matadionthe Lower Congo. See 
p. 276. The author lived for fifteen J. H. Weeks, of. cz¢. pp. 9, 19. 
years among the Boloki or Bangala of “ The same epithet is applied to 


the Upper Congo, and for fifteen more Nsambi (Nzambi) in Loango. See 
years in other parts of the Congo, above, p. 139. 


Vv WORSHTP OF SKY IN VALLEY OF THE ‘CONGO... 143 


Falls, the word used is A7ungu, which is a shortened form 
of the Swahili word szungu, and this may contain the root 
of the Lower Congo word mpungu. It is interesting to 
note that the most common name for the Supreme Being 
on the Congo is also known, in one form or another, over 
an extensive area of Africa reaching from 6° north of the 
Equator away to extreme South Africa; as, for example, 
among the Ashanti it is Onyazme, at Gaboon it is Anyamloze, 
and two thousand miles away among the Barotse folk it is 
Nianibe.”! 

“During the whole thirty years of my life in various parts Various 
of the Congo I have heard the name of the Deity used in Ws orih 
the following four ways only: Among the Lower Congo God. 
people, when they desire to emphasize a statement or vouch 
for the truthfulness of their words, they use the name in 
an oath. When in extreme trouble they cry out, ‘I wish 
Nzambi had never made me!’ or when in great distress, 
‘Nzambt, pity me!’ Also on the Lower Congo there is 
the phrase /ufwa lua Nzambi—death by God, ze. a natural 
death as distinctive from death by witchcraft; but this view 
of death is not so frequently heard on the Lower Congo as 
among the Boloki, where awz na Njanibe=he died by God, 

z.é. there is no witchcraft about the death of the deceased, 
nor anything pointing to witchcraft about the accident that 
caused the death, is often heard. These are the only phrases 
which suppose that the Supreme Being has anything to do 
with the world. They are generally employed in the case 
af poor folk when they die, as no one wants the trouble and 
expense of engaging a witch-doctor to seek out the witch.” ” 

In explanation of this last statement it may be observed Deaths in 

that in Africa many deaths are set down to the nefarious “"'<a0' 


imputed to 


arts of witches and wizards, and that in all such cases it is, wstetierates 
° . expense O 
or rather used to be, under native rule, deemed essential to fete tne 


discover the guilty wretch and to put him or her to death. Smt 
and con- 


Thus a single natural death in the old days was apt to sequent 

entail many deaths by violence; for the suspected witches yynlean! 
were commonly obliged to submit to the poison ordeal, to people to 
which multitudes of perfectly innocent victims succumbed. ARR 
1 J; H. Weeks, Among Congo 2 fH. Weeks, Among Congo ek 


Cannibals (London, 1913), pp. 246 sg. Cannibals, pp. 247 59. 


Belief of 
the natives 
of the 
Lower 
Congo ina 
great god 
Nzambi. 


144 WORSHIP OF LAE SKY IN AFRIGA CHAP. 


It is hardly too much to say that till Africa came under the 
sway of Europe its black population was decimated by the 
combined effects of the belief in witchcraft and the practice 
of the poison ordeal.' Fortunately the circumstances to 
which in the foregoing passage Mr. Weeks briefly alludes 
appear to have exercised some influence in moderating and 
restricting the ravages of this fatal superstition. In order to 
detect the supposed witch who had caused a death it was 
necessary to employ the agency of a professional witch-finder 
or witch-doctor, as he is commonly called by writers on 
Africa ; and this man of skill, or rather arrant impostor, had 
naturally to be paid for his services, and his charges might 
often be excessive. Thus an accusation of death by witch- 
craft doubtless often entailed heavy expenses on the accusers, 
and as a rule only wealthy people could afford to prosecute 
the sorcerer who, in their opinion, had done their kinsman 
to death by his malignant. enchantments. Poor people, 
even if they suspected foul play, would generally deem 
it prudent to stifle or hush up their suspicions, lest by 
giving vent to them they should be forced to call in the 
aid of a witch-finder and to satisfy his possibly exorbitant 
demands for bringing the imaginary culprit to justice. 
Hence, when death had removed one of the family circle, 
his or her indigent relations were under a strong temptation 
to attribute their bereavement to the hand of God rather 
than to that of a witch or wizard, since thereby they saved 
the expenses of a prosecution. Thus by a _ beautiful 
dispensation of Providence faith in God was powerfully 
reinforced by purely economic motives. 

The belief of the natives of the Lower Congo in a great 
and powerful god whom they call Nzambi, or more emphati- 
cally Nzambi-a-mpungu, is described also by Mr. G. C. 
Claridge, who spent twelve years in intimate intercourse with 
the people, and his description agrees with and confirms 
that of Mr. Weeks. He tells us that the natives look upon 
Nzambi as almighty, good, just, merciful, and kind, but that 
nevertheless, or rather for that very reason, they do not 
worship him. Nothing evil is ever attributed tohim. Pain, 


1 For evidence of the scourge, see Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol, iii. 
pp. 307-401, ‘* The Poison Ordeal in Africa”, 


Vv WORSHIP’ OF SKY IN VALLEY OF THE CONGO 145 


disease, and death come from evil spirits and witches, but 
never from God. Hence people need not fear or propitiate 
him, for he is never angry or offended. Consequently he 
may safely be left alone. He receives no mark of homage 
and is represented by no material object or fetish, though 
all the other inferior spirits are represented by fetishes 
which are deemed essential for the safety and even existence 
of mankind, who without them would be at the misty of 
ghosts and demons.’ 

As to the source of this belief in a great and beneficent 
deity Mr. Claridge observes that the Congolese “arrive at 
the idea of the existence of a chief good spirit .by the same 
reasoning as they come at the notion of a chief evil spirit. 
It is a negro chieftainship glorified.”* Indeed, whatever is 
mysterious or beyond human comprehension is called by 
them “a thing of God” (ma kia Nzambz). Thus an 
inedible fungus, the use of which is not understood, is 
spoken of as “ God’s fungus” (zzvwa wa Nzamoéz) ; the wild, 
vast, tangled jungle, with its majesty and mystery, is “ God’s 
jungle” (¢2t2 kia Nzambz); and man himself in common 
parlance is “God’s man” (s#untu a Nzambt)> There is a 
certain wasp of which the head and thorax are joined to the 
body by such a slender pin-like waist that the natives believe 
it to be impossible for the insect to bear young or lay eggs. 
The wasp builds itself a nest of mud in the shape of a 
cluster of cylindrical cells cemented together and exquisitely 
finished. In each cell the wasp lays an egg, and when the 
young are hatched the mother wasp carefully feeds them by 
pushing grubs, flies, and small spiders into each cell; then, 
when every cell is thus stored with food, she seals it up, to 
all appearance, hermetically. In due time the native, who 
has watched the process, sees issuing from the nest, not a 
grub, a fly, or a spider, like the insects which he saw put into 
it, but a wasp like the one he saw building the nest and 
depositing the grubs, flies, and spiders in the cells. This 


1G, Cyril Claridge, Wild Bush to God, for example in the phrase 
Tribes of Trofical Africa (London, mpungu ngangu, ‘¢an absolute fool”. 
1922) Pp. 268-275. According to Mr. 2 c Cyril Claridge Wild Bush 
Claridge (of. c7/. p. 269), the epithet es Aa alan th bani oe i 
mpungu is an absolute superlative, 0 OUTLET ILLES ALS ee 
signifying ‘‘the utmost ”, ‘‘supreme”’. 3G. Cyril Claridge, Wild Bush 
It can be applied to men as well as Tribes of Tropical Africa, pp. 270 sg. 

VOL. I L 


Source 
of the 
belief in 
Nzambi. 


The name 
Nzambi 
applied to 
whatever 
is mys- 
terious and 
incompre- 
hensible. 


Belief of 
the Upotos 
in a god 
called 
Libanza. 


Mythical 
history of 
Libanza : 
his descent 
from a fine 
songstress. 


146 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


apparent transformation he cannot understand; he looks 
upon it as an act of creation, and accordingly he calls this 
particular species of wasp “ God’s transforming or creating 
wasp” (mfingt a Nzambt ankitula).' With this extended use 
of the word God (Wzambi) we may compare the Homeric 
application .of the epithets god-like and divine (¢hezos, dios) 
to a great variety both of objects and of persons, including 
a house, a tower, a city, a land, horses, a herald, a bard, and 
even a swineherd.” 

The Upotos, who inhabit the banks of the Upper Congo 
between 20 and 22° East Longitude, believe in a god called 
Libanza, who lives in the east, while his sister Ntsongo lives 
in the west. He had a beginning but he will never die, and 
the same is true of all the divine beings, because, when they 
are on the point of death, Libanza brings them to life again. 
But though Libanza appears to be at present the chief god 
of the Upotos and to dwell in the sky, he was not the first 
being in existence, nor did he always inhabit heaven. Before 
he was born, two sisters lived ina tall tree. They had mag- 
nificent voices, and they sang so that it was a real pleasure 
to hear them. A long string hung from the tree to the 
ground, and anybody who wished to hear the sisters sing 
had nothing to do but to pull the string, and at once the 
songstresses in the tree opened their lips and chanted the 
most ravishing strains. Several animals, including a leopard, 
pulled the string, and were so enchanted with the concert 
that they offered marriage to the arboreal sirens, but their 
offers were rejected. At last a cock of resplendent plumage 
came along, sang “ Cock-a-doodle-do!” and tugged at the 
string. The songstresses responded as usual from the tree, 
and their sweet voices made such an impression on the 
susceptible bosom of chanticleer, that like his predecessors 
he offered them his heart and hand on the spot. Whether 
the sisters were fascinated by his gorgeous feathers or his 
musical talent, it is impossible to say, but certain it is that 


1G. Cyril Claridge, Wild Bush xiii. 440, xiv. 48, 401, xvi. P, 333, 

Tribes of Tropical Africa, pp. 269 sq. 452, -xtil, 260) (507° tau, eho Oseene 

many more examples see H. Ebeling, 

2 Homer, //zad, ii. 836, iv. 192, Lexicon Homericum (Lipsiae, 1880-— 

viii, 185, xxi. 43, / 526, °xxill. 346, ©1885) vol. tu) pp. 310: 57.4557, ee eee 
Odyssey, iii. 326, iv. 43, 313, Vill. 43, Séos and Oeios. 


Vv ONO, Si Ne AL LEY, Of Li CONGO | 1A7 


they at once closed with his offer, descended the tree, and 
followed him to his home. There they all lived happily 
together until one day it began to rain. When the 
shower was over, the ants, as usually happens after 
rain, popped up out of the earth by thousands, and the 
cock ran about picking them up and swallowing them. 
This disgusting conduct was overseen by a maidservant, 
who officiously reported it to the ladies, the wives of 
chanticleer.. At first they refused to credit the report, 
which they treated as a base calumny, the invention of a 
low-tninded hussy who was jealous of their handsome 
husband. Touched to the quick by this reflection on her 
honour, the abigail watched the cock and soon found him 
at his old trick again. Not only that, she brought her 
incredulous mistresses to the spot while the unconscious 
cock was still at his meal. Seeing was believing, the horri- 
fied wives deserted their ant-eating spouse and returned to 
the tree, where, after a period of sorrow and silence, they 
resumed their popular concerts. One day it chanced that 
Lotenge, the future father of the Supreme Being, passed near 
the tree and heard the ravishing accents of the songstresses 
proceeding from among the boughs. He looked up, and, 
pleased with the aspect and voices of the singers, he made 
them the usual offer of marriage, which was accepted. Well, 
to cut a long story short, one of the sisters, whose name 
was Ntsombobelle, gave birth to a son, who came into 
the world armed cap-a-pie with spear, knife, and buckler. 
After that she brought forth thousands and thousands of 
serpents, mosquitoes, and other vermin, all of them, singularly 
enough, armed to the teeth with spears and bucklers. After 
that she bore to her husband twin sons, of whom the younger 
was no other than the Supreme God, Libanza himself. After 
his birth Libanza roamed the earth and met with many 
adventures. He married several wives and had at least one 
son. He fought many people, including his own aunt, and 
he gave proof of his marvellous powers in various ways, 
particularly by restoring not a few people to life, including 
some whom he had himself knocked on the head. But his 
quarrelsome and sanguinary disposition .estranged the affec- 
tions of his mother and sister. His mother abandoned him 


The 
adventures 
of Libanza. 


148 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


His quarrel to his evil courses, and his sister reproached him for his _ 


vey misdeeds in very bitter words. “You killed your elder 
his brother,” she said, “and you very nearly killed your own 


ascension 


to heaven, father, and do you imagine that I will stick at declaring that 


I hate you? No, I hate you and I should be glad to see 
you die.” To this stinging reproof Libanza replied very 
meekly, for, to do him justice, in spite of his general trucu- 
lence he kept a soft place in his heart for his sister. It 
happened that she had expressed a wish that he should fetch 
her some palm nuts, and now, by way of heaping coals of 
fire on her head, he climbed up the palm-tree to gather the 
nuts. But the higher he climbed, the higher grew the palm, 
till its branches were lost in the clouds, and the people who 
remained at the foot of the tree could see neither the nuts 
nor Libanza. He disappeared, because he would no longer 
live with his sister, who hated him and wished for his death. 
His sister and her people waited for him at the foot of the 
tree, and when they saw that he did not come back, they 
founded a village on the spot, which stands there to this day. 
Up aloft, above the clouds, Libanza discovered to his 
surprise the aunt whom he had fought and the brother 
whom he had murdered. He also engaged in a battle 
royal with Lombo, the King of the Air, in which he gained 
a complete victory and reduced the King of the Air and all 
his people to slavery.’ 
The abode Nowadays Libanza, as we have seen, inhabits the east, 
Sheree while his sister Ntsongo, with whom he quarrelled, inhabits 
souls of the the west. The day when he will go to see her in the west, 
rela everybody will fall ill, and many people will die. The day 
will come when the sky will collapse and flatten us all out, 
blacks and whites alike. The thing would probably have 
happened long ago, if it had not been for the intercession 
of the souls of the dead (solemons), who have begged and 
prayed Libanza not to let the sky fall, and up till now he 
has lent an ear to their prayer; but how long he will do so 
is more than anybody knows. The moon is a huge boat, 
which sails across the whole earth picking up the souls of 
the dead and conveying them to Libanza. The stars are 


1 M. Lindeman, Zes Ufotos (Bruxelles, 1906), pp. 23-40.. I have greatly 
abridged the story of Libanza, 


Vv WORSHIP OF SKY IN VALLEY OF THE CONGO r49 


the fires lit by the souls of the dead, who sleep by day. 
That is proof positive that Libanza lives in the sky; 
for the souls of the dead live with him, and since we 
see their fires every night in heaven, it follows necessarily 
that Libanza is there too. As for the sun, he brews 
palm-wine for Libanza and brings it to him for his refresh- 
ment every evening. When there is a storm, it is Libanza 
fighting ; when there is a mist, it is Libanza smoking his 
pipe ; and when there is a wind, it is Libanza sneezing. 
The beard of Libanza is like a staircase; his people climb 
up and down it on their way to and from him. As for his 
figure, Libanza, his sister, his son, and his cousin have all 
the likeness of human beings, but oddly enough their com- 
plexion is white instead of black, as you would naturally 
expect it to be.’ 

Like many Sky-gods, Libanza is believed to be ultimately Story of 
responsible for human mortality. They say that one day he te ongin 
summoned to his presence the people of the moon and the Libanaa, 
people of the earth. The people of the moon responded Sean 
promptly to the summons, and were accordingly rewarded the Earth 
by the deity, who addressed them as follows: “ Because you eal 
have come at once when I called you, you shall never die, 
or, to speak more correctly, you shall only be dead for two 
days a month, and that will be to rest; thereafter you 
shall return more splendid than before”. But when the 
people of the earth at last arrived, Libanza was angry and 
he said to them in his wrath, “ Because you did not come 
at once when I called you, you shall die one day and shall 
not return to life except to come to me”.* That is the 
reason why the moon dies once a month and comes to life 
again after two days, and why men, when they die, do not 
return, but go, as everybody knows, to Libanza in heaven. 

The Basonge, who inhabit a country bordering on the Belief of 
Sankuru River, a southern tributary of the Congo, believe pacers 
in the existence of a Supreme Being whom they call Efile ina 
Mokulu. The same name is applied to the Supreme Being sane 
by all the tribes of the great Baluba family, to which the ap 
Basonge belong. To Efile Moluku they attribute the creation yoxutu, 
of the world and of everything in it. After he had created 


1 M. Lindeman, Zes Upotos, pp. 43 5g. 2 M. Lindeman, Les Ufotos, pp. 23 sg. 


Oath by 
Efile 
Mokulu. 


Belief of 
the Herero 
in a great 
God 


Ndyambi 
Karunga. 


150 WORSHIP. COPE TTLL Sit Va av eee net CHAP. 


the first man and the first woman, he observed that their 
progeny multiplied at an alarming rate, and he said, “ These 
folk grow too numerous and too strong. Soon they will be 
so powerful that they will have the upper hand over me and 
will do with me what they please.” So he drove them to 
earth and said, “ The earth is too far off for them ever to 
find their way back. There they will abide all the days of 
their life, so long as they rejoice in the strength of their 
thews, and only their impalpable souls will come to me.” 
Hence it is that after death the souls of men go to Efile 
Mokulu and are governed by him; but what they do there, 
is more than anybody knows. The people offer neither 
prayers nor sacrifices to him, but they invoke his name in 
taking an oath. In swearing a solemn oath a man first 
points to the sky, then he cracks his forefinger against the 
other fingers of his hand, saying, “ This is the truth, this is 
the truth, this is the truth, and if not, may Efile Moluku kill 
me on the spot!” This custom of pointing to the sky before 
taking an oath seems to imply that Efile Moluku is believed to 
dwell there. Although he drove the living out of his sight, he 
appears to have retained a certain control over them and to 
consult their interest, in so far as he punishes murderers by 
calling their souls to himself and thus causing their death.’ 


§ 3. The Worship of the Sky in Southern Africa 


The Herero, a Bantu people of South-west Africa, 
believe in a great god whom they call Ndyambi or Ndyambi 
Karunga. Like other Bantu tribes, they look on him as a 
good God and as the Creator; but they believe that he has 
retired to the sky and dwells there, leaving the government 
of the earth in the hands of inferior deities or demons. 
Questioned by missionaries as to the nature of this divinity, 
the Herero answered, “ We call him Ndyambi Karunga ; he 
is in heaven above and not in the graves; he is a god of 


1 EK, Torday et T. A. Joyce, Motes 
Ethnographiques sur des Populations 
habitant les Bassins du Kasai et du 
Kwango Ortental (Bruxelles, 1922), 
pp. 25 sg. The authors, in a foot- 
note, record that, according to another 
account, Vzdia (sic) Mokulu is in the 


centre of the earth, and the souls of 
men go to him but return after a time, 
and are reincarnated, with the excep- 
tion of such as have been guilty of 
crimes. For this account they refer to 
Schmitz, Les Basonge, p. 324, a work 
which I have not seen. 


V WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA 151 


blessing; he is angry with nobody and punishes nobody”. 
Asked why they did not worship him. and offer sacrifices to 

him they replied, “ Why should we sacrifice to him? We 

do not need to fear him, for he does not do us any harm, as 

do the spirits of our dead (ovakuru).”” And if anybody 
accuses them of having no God, they at once repel the 
accusation, saying, “ No, no! we are not so bad as that. 

We have Ndyambi Karunga, we also pray to him.” They 

do so when some unexpected piece of good luck befalls them. 

Then they stand stock still, look up to heaven and cry, 

“ Ndyambi Karunga!” as if they would say “ He loves us!” 

In general Ndyambi Karunga is looked upon as the pre- 
server of life. When, a man who has been grievously sick 
recovers, they say, “Ndyambi has made him whole”. 
When a man has reached a great age, they say, “ Ndyambi 
Karunga has preserved him” ; and when such a veteran dies, 

the expression employed is, “ Ndyambi Karunga has called 
him”. It would seem that Karunga is believed to exercise 

some influence on the powers of nature. Now and then it is 

said that the rain comes from: him, that his way is in the rolling 
thunder, and that it is he who hurls the flashes of lightning. In Prayers to 
a violent thunderstorm the headman of a house or village may pee 
be heard to pray, “ Karunga, do not come here, go flash into 

the animals of the field and into the trees”. They also pray 

to Karunga in other dangers ; when for example lions are 
prowling around they will pray to Karunga, saying, “See 

my distress and anguish, and help me. Show that thou art 
mighty and strong.” And generally in seasons of distress 

and danger the Herero used to pray to Ndyambi Karunga to 

avert all manner of evil. Nowadays such prayers are rarely 

heard. Instead the people prefer to.call on the spirits of 

their ancestors, who, however, can only be invoked at their 
graves. But if the graves are too far off or for any reason 
inaccessible, the Herero will even now call to Ndyambi for 

help. They look on him as a god of love and blessing: 

the essence of his character is benevolence: the punishment 

of evil is no part of his function. They believe, indeed, in 

such punishment, but they think that the powers which Worship of 
inflict it are the spirits of their dead ancestors (ovakuru). ote 
It is these spirits accordingly whom they fear, it is they who 


Belief 
of the 
Ovambo 
in a god 
Kalunga. 


But 
apparently 
Kalunga is 
rather an 
Earth-god 
thana Sky- 
god. 


152 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


are apt to be angry and to bring danger and misfortune on 
men. Hence it is that they render all their worship, not to 
Ndyambi Karunga, but to the souls of their departed. To 
win the favour of these formidable beings or to avert their 
wrath, the Herero offer many sacrifices, not out of love and 
gratitude, but out of fear and anguish. The real religion of 
the Herero, like that of so many other Bantu tribes, is the 
worship of ancestors.’ 

The Ovambo, another Bantu people of South-west Africa, 
believe in a god Kalunga, whose name, apart from a 
difference of dialect, is clearly the same with the Karunga — 
of their neighbours the Herero. They think that Kalunga 
created the world and men, but their notions about him are 
vague, and when they are questioned on the subject, their 
usual answer is, “We do not know”. They neither fear nor 
worship him ; he appears to trouble himself very little about 
human weal or woe.” Yet according to another and earlier 
account the Ovambo regard Kalunga as a good being; like 
the Herero, they say, “We are kept by Kalunga; Kalunga 
only kills very bad people”. Moreover, they hold that 
he gives fertility to the fields, and makes the corn and the 
beans to grow. However, it would seem that Kalunga is 
conceived rather as an Earth-god than as a Sky-god. They 
say that he came forth from the earth to.create the ancestors 
of the Ovambo, the Herero, and the Bushmen. . Moreover, 
he is reported to live in the ground near the chief village, 
and to appear from time to time to the people in the company 
of his wife Musisi. On such occasions a voice may be heard 
commanding a man to sacrifice a black ox. The man obeys 
and kills an- ox on the spot where he heard the voice. 
Then Kalunga appears to him, strokes him with his hand 
over the eyes, exhorts him to follow after that which is good, 
and sends through him a gracious admonition to the king.® 


1 Rev. H. Beiderbecke, ‘‘Some Ngambhe, Nzambi, Zambi, Ambi, 


religious Ideas and Customs of the 
Ovaherero” (South African) Folk-lore 
Journal, ii, (Capetown, 1880) pp. 88- 
92; J. Irle, Deze Herero (Giitersloh, 
1906), pp. 72-74. The latter author 
notes (p. 75) the occurrence of the 
same divine name under various forms 
(Njambi, Njame, Onjame, Nyambi, 


Anjambi, etc.) in many widely separ- 
ated tribes of the Bantu family, 

2 II, Ténjes, Ovamboland (Berlin, 
I9II), pp. 193 57. 

3 Rev. H. Beiderbecke, ‘‘ Some 
religious Ideas and Customs of the 
Ovaherero” (South African) Folk-lore 
Journal, ii, (Capetown, 1880) pp. 95 sg. 


v WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 153 


The Bapindji and the Badjok, two tribes in the basin of the Belief of 

Kasai River, a southern tributary of .the Congo, recognize ee . 
: ‘ apindji 

a Supreme Being whom they call Kalunga. The Badjok and Badjok 

invoke him in prayer, but little can be learned concerning ahere: 

him, except that he is supposed to cause the death of old 

people who die otherwise than by violence." Thus a Supreme 

Being called Karunga or Kalunga is recognized by several 


widely separated tribes of South-west Africa. 


§ 4. The Worship of the Sky in Eastern Africa 


We have now completed our survey of the worship of The belief 
the sky in Western and Southern Africa. We have seen gyoyeme 
that many tribes of that vast region believe in the existence God who 
of a Supreme God and Creator who lives in the sky, and Teas 
who, in some cases at least, appears to have been originally ae in 
a simple personification of the physical firmament. We bias Raine 
have seen that, coupled with the belief in the existence of Africa. 
such a deity, is the notion that of old he lived upon earth on 
terms of intimacy with mankind, but that, as time went on, 
men offended him in some way, and therefore he quitted 
the earth and retired to the sky, where for the most part 
he is now supposed to concern himself very little with 
human affairs, which he leaves in the hands of his agents, 
the inferior spirits or demi-gods. The authorities who 
have reported these beliefs at first hand are practically 
unanimous in holding that they are of native African origin 
and not borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Christian 
teaching. | 

Now similar beliefs concerning the Sky-god and his A similar 
relations to mankind prevail among the tribes of Eastern seks 
Africa, at least from Delagoa Bay on the south to the great a great 
‘lakes and the head waters of the Nile on the north, and in Be 
some of these tribes the deity in question is known by among 

: ° :_ the tribes 
the very same name, Nzambi or Nyambe, by which he is ¢ Fast 


designated among many tribes of Western Africa. The ae in 
. . 3 5, some oOo 
resemblance, amounting in some cases almost to identity, of these tribes 


religious belief among tribes which together probably occupy bebearsthe 
1 E, Torday et Ay Joyce, Notes Ethnographiques sur des Populations habi- (Nzambi or 


tant les Bassins du Kasai et du Kwango Oriental (Bruxelles, 1922), p. 293. elas hs 


Africa. 


154 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


a full half of the great continent of Africa, is certainly re- 
markable. The problem of its origin is interesting and 
worthy of serious consideration, but the evidence to hand is 
insufficient to justify any positive conclusions, and con- 
jectures on the subject, in the present state of our knowledge, 
would be premature. It is more profitable to study the 
facts than to speculate on their origin. Accordingly we 
proceed to survey the beliefs concerning Sky-gods and 
Supreme Beings among the natives of Eastern Africa, 
treating of the tribes in a roughly geographical order from 
south to north. We begin with the Thonga, a Bantu tribe 
about Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa. Their 
religious and social system has been very fully and ably 
described by a Swiss Protestant missionary, Monsieur Henri 
A. Junod, in two excellent books, from which I will draw 
in what follows. 


Belief of The Thonga believe in a dim mysterious power which 
Oa Ameaee they identify with the sky and call by their name for sky, 


mysterious which is ¢2/o. In common speech the word f¢z/o designates 
power P 8 
called Tilo the blue sky or heaven, conceived as a place, and especially, 


Rane : it would seem, as a place of rest for the weary. This 
tdentine 


with the thought is expressed in a song: 


sky. 
. “OY! how I should love to plait a string, and go up to Heaven, 
Ss £4 
I would go there to find rest” 3 
Tilo is But Tilo is more than a place. It is a power which acts 


th ht t Nes . : ; . eC 
reguate and manifests itself in various ways. Sometimes it is called 


certain a Lord (Aosz); but generally it is regarded as something — 


natural and 


human entirely impersonal. The Thonga appear to think that 
pheno- Heaven regulates and presides over certain great cosmic 
mena, such f . 
asrain, | Phenomena to which men are obliged, whether they will or 
Storinse yet, to submit. It is especially events of a sudden and 
and the . . . 
birth of . Unexpected nature which are thus traced to the direction 
Ewing and influence of Heaven. In the sphere of nature they 
comprise rain and storms; in the sphere of human life 
they include convulsions and the birth of twins.” Thus 
it is Heaven that afflicts children with those terrible and 
1H. A. Junod, Zhe Life of a South 2 H. A. Junod, 7he Life of a South 
African Tribe (Neuchatel, 1912-1913), African Tribe, li. 392; w., Les Ba- 
ii. 389-391; zd, Les Ba-Ronga Ronga, pp. 410 sq. 
(Neuchatel, 1898), pp. 408-410. 


ee 





Vv WORSAIPLOL THE wk YIN EASTERN AFRICA, 155 


mysterious convulsions which carry them off suddenly. <A 
child in convulsions is said to be “ill from Heaven” (a xz 
Tzlo). But more than that it is Heaven that kills and 
makes alive. Hence, when somebody has escaped a great 
danger or is very prosperous,‘it 1s often said, “ Heaven loved 
him” (72lo adj¢ mou randjilé); but if a man has been very 
unlucky or has died, they say, “ Heaven hated him” (77/0 
aji mou yalilé).’ But the natives agree that in former times 
it was’ more usual than at present to ascribe death to the 
direct agency of Heaven, which was believed to kill by 
lightning ; nowadays death is more commonly thought to 
be caused by witchcraft or by the action of the inferior gods.” 

The cause of thunder is attributed by the Thonga The cause 

either to a mythical bird or, more frequently, to Heaven. Sea aag 
The proper expression for “it thunders” is “ Heaven roars” to Heaven 
(Tilo dj¢ djuma). Native magicians fancy that they can Ase 
avert a thunderstorm by blowing on an enchanted flute 
which contains a magical stuff supposed to be extracted 
from the mythical thunder-bird. When he sees a thunder- 
storm approaching the magician ascends a hill, blows his 
flute, and shouts, “ You Heaven, go farther! I have nothing 
against you, I do not fight against you.” He may add ina 
threatening tone, “If you are sent by my enemies against me, 
I will cut you open with this knife of mine”? In this case 
Heaven seems to be clearly conceived of as a personal being 
who can be intimidated with threats and cut to pieces with 
a knife. 

Again, in the minds of the Thonga twins are closely Twins 
associated with Heaven and rain. The mother of twins is ae 
called Heaven (77/0), and the twins are called “ Children of with 
Heaven” (Bana ba Tilo)* The mother is said to have made igo and 
Heaven (a hkambi Tilo), to have carried Heaven (a rwz 77/0), LS Py 
to have ascended to Heaven (a khandjty¢ Tilo). The day «Children 
after twins have been born, nobody tills the ground, because °! 


Heaven "’. 


they fear that, if they did so, they would prevent the rain 


1H. A. Junod, Zhe Life of a South 3-H. A. Junod, Zhe Life of a South 
African Tribe, ii. 392; ta, Les Ba- African Tribe, ii, 290-292. 
Canes pp. 410 sg. 
A. Junod, The Life of a South 4H, A, Junod, Zhe Life of a South 
Siete Tribe, ii; 393. S¢., 407; ta, African Tribe, ii. 3943. td., Les Ba- 
Les Ba-Ronga, pp. 411 sg. Ronga, p. 412. 


156 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


from falling.' In time of drought a mother of twins must 
lead a procession of women, who draw water and pour it on 
the graves of twins in order to ensure the fall of rain. And 
if a twin should have been buried in dry ground, the women 
will dig up the body and bury it again near a river; or if 
they do not dig it up, they will at least go in procession 
and pour water on the grave. This is supposed to act on 
Heaven, which is killing the earth by the terrible heat of the 
sun. Soon after the burning wind will cease to blow, and 
rain will fall. 
Twins The connexion between twins and Heaven appears in 
eres relation to thunderstorms as well as to rain. When lightning 
thunder- threatens a village, people say toa twin, “ Help us. You are 
roms" a child of Heaven, you can therefore cope with Heaven, it 
will hear you when you speak.” So the child goes out of 
the hut and prays to Heaven in these words: “Go away ! 
Do not annoy us! We are afraid. Go and roar far away!” 
When the thunderstorm is over, the child is thanked for its 
service. The mother of twins can similarly dispel a storm 
of thunder and lightning, for has she not ascended to 
Heaven ?,° 


The Ba- The Ba-Ila or Ila-speaking tribes are a Bantu people of 
Nochern Northern Rhodesia in the valley of the Kafue River, which 
Rhodesia is a northern tributary of the Zambesi. They believe in the 
believe in a . f S B e d Te h d 
Supreme €XiStence of a Supreme Being named Leza, who made men 
Being and all things and inhabits the sky. They apply to him 
named m . 
Leza, who Several epithets, such as Creator (CAzlenga or Namulenga), 
lives inthe Moulder and Constructor (Skakapanga), with reference to 
sky. a . . : «“ 
his creative power. Again he is spoken of as “ The Eternal 
One”, and in relation to men as “The Guardian”, and “The 
Giver”. One of his titles means, “ Master, Owner of his 
things ”, because he is believed to be not only the master, 
but the owner of all, and the ordainer of the fate of all. 
Such titles are commonly applied to Leza; they are in no 
sense esoteric, but may be heard on the lips of anybody.’ 
1H. A. Junod, Zhe Life of a South 3H, A. Junod, Zhe Life of a South 
African Tribe, ii. 398 sg. African Tribe, ii. 399 sg. 
> * H. A. Junod, 7he Life of a South 4E. W. Smith and (Ay Mi abales 
African Tribe, ii, 296; td., Les Ba- The lla-speaking Peoples of Northern 
Ronga, p. 418, Khodesia (London, 1920), ii. 197 Seg. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA _ 157 


Another name. given to Leza is “ The’ Faller ’, ‘with 
reference to the fall of rain. For of all the functions dis- 
charged by Leza, that of bestowing rain on the earth is 
apparently the most important. Hence in popular speech 
Leza is identified with the rain and with its common 
accompaniments, thunder and lightning. Instead of saying, 
“It rains”, they say, “ Leza. falls”; instead of sayitig, “ It 
lightens”, they say, ‘‘Leza is fierce”; instead of saying, 
“Tt thunders ”, they say, “ Leza is making the reverberating 
sound, d@t-ndt-ndi”, or “Leza is beating his rugs”. <A 
thing struck by lightning is said to be “split by Leza” 
And they identify, or at least associate, Leza with other 
atmospheric phenomena. Thus the rainbow is called “Leza’s 
bow”; when the weather is very hot, they say, “ Leza is very 
hot”; when a wind is blowing they say, “Leza blows ”.! 
Thus to the thinking of the natives Leza is the rain, Leza is 
the thunder, Leza is the lightning, Leza is the heat, Leza is 
the wind. In short, Leza is the sky and what comes from 
it. His identification with the rain is particularly striking, 
because the people have the common Bantu word for rain 
(za2vula), yet they always ids of the rain as Leza in the 
regular expression, “ Leza falls”, that is, “rain falls”. Thus 
the analogy between this Acne Sky-god and the great 
Aryan Sky-god, of whom Zeus is the most familiar type, 
appears to be complete.” 


Leza gives 
rain and is 
identified 
with it. 


Leza 
associated 
with other 
natural 
pheno- 
mena, such 


. as thunder, 


lightning, 
and wind. 


And the natural conditions which have favoured the Leza, like 


development of such a conception are not dissimilar in the 


Zeus, 
thought of 


two countries. Just as in Greece the long summer is almost as the 


rainless, so is the winter season in the tropical climate o 


f beneficent 
giv er of 


Northern Rhodesia. There not a drop of rain falls from rain. 


the end of March till the end of October. The small 
rivers either disappear entirely or shrivel up into shallow 
pools. As winter passes and the sultry month of August 
comes in, the sun’s power waxes day by day, until in the 
weeks that precede the rains the heat becomes almost 
unbearable. Then a wonderful, an impressive change comes 
over the landscape. In the azure heaven the dark clouds 
gather, the wind suddenly veers round to the west, and a 


1 Smith and Dale, of. cit, ii. 202, 2 Smith and Dale, of. czt. ii. 204, 
204. : 205. 


Leza 
conceived 
as a moral 
being, a 
lawgiver, 


158 WORSHIP (OF THE SK YOLN ARICA CHAP. 


great storm bursts, sweeping over the country and heralding 
the approach of the rainy season. The transformation of 
the scene is magical. A day or two after the storm has 
rolled away, and the thunder has ceased to peal, the light- 
ning to flash, and the torrential rain to fall, nature wears a 
new, a fresher, greener aspect. Millions of tiny seedlings 
are pushing their way through the late parched and thirsty 
soil. The people have hoed their fields and are now busy 
planting them. For months, it may be, food has been 
scarce; and the coming of the rain has been anticipated 
with eagerness and anxiety. Should it be delayed or the 
fall be scanty, the disappointment is deep, the outlook is 
sloomy. When a native speaks of Leza, this African Zeus, 
as “ The Compassionate”, “The Kindly One”, he is thinking 
of an abundant rainfall with all its blessed consequences for 
mankind.’ 

These last epithets imply that Leza is not a simple 
personification of natural forces, but a moral being, a per- 
sonal god. He stands in some relationship to men; he is 
their god, not merely a Sky-god; he is: believed to have 
established many customs, and to punish any breach of 
them ; certain laws or regulations are called, “God’s pro- 
hibitions”.? People swear by Leza and invoke him as a 
witness to the truth of a solemn asseveration, as for example, 
“Before God (Leza) I did not steal”. In short, the Ba-Ila 
have risen to the conception of a great and powerful being, 
who is closely related to the phenomena of the sky, but who 
at the same time is the maker of all things and the guardian 
of men. -Yet they are, far from. conceiving oflezay asea 
purely benevolent being. He is indeed over all; as the 
canopy of the sky he “covers us”, to adopt their expression, 
but this is not altogether a comfort. For the most part the 
natives regard him as an all-powerful Fate, to whom they 
trace much of the evil and sorrow of life. A man who is 
bereft of his children is spoken of as “one upon whom Leza 
has looked”, as if there was death in the mere look of the 
Sky-god.4 


1 Smith and Dale, of. cz¢. ii. 205. 3 Smith and Dale, of. cz?¢. i. 355. 
2 Smith and Dale, of. cit. i. 345, . 
11°206,.207, 211: 4 Smith and Dale, of. czt, ii. 207. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN-EASTERN AFRICA 159 


But whatever his character, Leza is entirely distinct from Leza quite 

the worshipful ghosts (s2¢z/z0), who once were living men, eae 
and who now are revered as the divinities of their descend- worshipful 
ants. Nobody suggests that Leza was ever a man, nor is he aire 
ever spoken of as a worshipful ghost. He stands in a class 
by himself. It is true that legends assign to him a wife 
and a family, but that does not imply his original humanity. 
The ancestral ghosts (#zzhzm0) are near to men; they are 
of the same nature, they know human life from the inside, 
they understand the wants of men, for they have been men 
themselves. But it is not so with Leza; he is far off and 
takes little or no cognizance of the affairs of individuals.’ 

Hence there is a difference between the worship of The 
Leza and the worship of the ancestral ghosts. While it is ors"? % 
necessary to invoke the help of the ghosts and to propitiate distinct 
them with offerings, many tribes who acknowledge the Seana at 
existence of Leza do not pray to him at all; they think him ancestral 
too far away, too indolent to heed the petty affairs of man- Bee 
kind. But the Ba-Ila do not adopt this view of the purely 
apathetic and nonchalant character of Leza. They seek to 
come into relationship with him. They look upon the 
ancestral ghosts as mediators between Leza and themselves, 
but on occasion they address him directly. They say that 
“his ears are long”, meaning that he can hear even words 
whispered in secret. But he has not, like the great ghosts, 
any mouthpiece or prophet who periodically summons the 
people to sacrifice to him. Generally speaking, it is only 
on occasions of special need, when the help of lesser beings 
has proved of no avail, that the natives fall back on Leza 
as their last hope.” 

As might be expected in the case of a god of the sky Prayers to 
and the rain, it is especially in seasons of drought that the rae os 
help of Leza is earnestly besought. Then the people chant 
invocations to him, addressing him by his laudatory names. 

One such refrain runs thus: 


“* Come to us with a continued rain, O Leza, fall!” 
‘ . 


These prayers for rain are put up by the people in one or 
more huts specially built for the purpose. But as the Ba-TIla, 


1 Smith and Dale, of. cét, ii. 207 sg. 2 Smith and Dale, of. cé¢. ii, 208. 


Prayers of 
hunters to 
Leza for 

success in 
the chase. 


160 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


like many other people, distrust the unassisted efficacy of 
prayer, they have recourse to magic to reinforce their sup- 
plications, and to extort rain from the sky. Accordingly 
the services of a rain-maker are called in, and he performs 
a ceremony with water and smoke, which, by imitating 
clouds and rain, is supposed, on the principles of homoeo- 
pathic magic, to produce or to assist in producing the desired 
result... This combination of magic and religion is charac- 
teristic of mankind in all ages and in all countries; the 
theoretical opposition of magic and religion presents, no 
obstacle to their simultaneous application in practice. 

Again, when a party of hunters have been out in the 
forest for many days and have had no luck, they build a 
shed, and if there is a diviner among them, they inquire of 
him what divinity it is that keeps them from killing game. 
If the diviner discovers that it is Leza himself who is to 
blame, he says to them, “ Let us go out of the shed and 
sweep a clear space outside”. They do so, and then 
with all their things they assemble at that clear space. 
The eldest man takes his place in the middle, and with 
the others sitting in a ring around him, he prays, saying, 
“O Eternal One, if it be Thou that keepest us from killing 
animals, why is it? We pray Thee, let us kill to-day 
before the set of sun.” When he has finished praying, 
all the rest fall to the ground and cry, “O Chief, to-day 
let: us kill”. “Then they. break upVandijco tos tnemeuee 
to rest a while. Late in the afternoon they separate and 
hunt. If one of them kills an animal, he calls his fellows, 
and they clap their hands. One cuts off bits of meat from 
the quarry and makes an offering, throwing a piece in the 
air and saying, “I thank Thee for the meat which Thou 
givest me. To-day Thou hast stood by me.” They clap 
their hands. Then they take the meat to the space cleared 
for Leza. The oldest man arises, cuts off bits of meat and 
makes an offering, saying, “ Chief, here is some of the meat 
Thou has given us. We are very grateful.” Then he 
throws the morsels of meat into the air, and offers again 
between the horns of the beast. Lastly they utter a shrill 
greeting and divide the meat. They say, “Who gave us 

1 Smith and Dale, of. cz¢, ii, 208 sg. . 


Vv WORSHIP (OF THE SK VIN EASTERN AFRICA 161 


the meat? It was Leza who gave it to us, not a divinity,” 
that is, it was not given by one of the ancestral ghosts 
(mtzhtmo), who are the ordinary divinities of the people.’ 

Again, in sickness, when prayers to the ancestral ghosts Prayers to 
have proved unavailing, people will pray directly to Leza peee 
himself. In that case the head of the household fills a sick. 
vessel with water and meal, pours some of the liquid on the 
ground at the right side of the threshold, and prays thus: 
*eza,)l pray Thee. “If-it be Thou who hast made our 
brother sick, leave him alone, that Thy slave may go about 
by himself. Was it not Thou who createdst him on the 
earth and said he should walk and trust Thee?. Leave Thy 
child, that he may trust thee, Eternal One! We pray to 
Thee—Thou art the great Chief!” He then fills his mouth 
with water and squirts some out as an offering. 

Further, when a man is travelling and arrives at a river, Prayers of 
he sometimes takes the opportunity of offering a sacrifice to Pt aatc 
Leza. Filling his mouth with water, he squirts some of it 
on the ground and says this, or something like it: “It is 
Thou who leadest me. Now may I return with Thy pros- 
perity from the place whither I am going, O Leza! Goon 
shepherding me well, my Master!” 

Again, among the Balumbu, one of the Ila-speaking Prayers of 
tribes, when a party of fishermen are about to set a trap in feces ldo 
the river, the doctor or magician, whose business it is to 
draw fish to their doom, wades into the water, fills his mouth 
with magical stuff, and spits it all around. Then he prays, 
saying, “ We are humble before thee. Make good, O Leza, 
and give to us crocodiles and many fish!” If a crocodile 
chances to be caught in the trap, where it flounders and 
splashes about, it is looked upon as a happy omen ; for where 
there is a crocodile, there the natives expect to find many 
fish.4 Again, when hunters have killed an elephant and Ofterings 
returned to the village, the occasion is celebrated by See eine 
great feast. But before the people partake of the good an 
cheer set out for them, they present offerings to Leza, to ‘Pr 
the ancestral spirits, and to the ghost of the deceased 


1 Smith and Dale, of. czt, ii. 209. 2 Smith and Dale, of. c7t, ii. 210. © 
As to the worshipful ghosts or divini- 3 Smith and Dale, of. cé¢, ii, 211. 
ties, see za. ii, 164 sg. 4 Smith and Dale, of. crt. i. 161 sg. 


VOL. I Rn: M 


162 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


elephant, who is supposed to have followed his slayers back 
to the village. They pray, also, to the ghost, saying, “O 
Spirit, have you no brothers and fathers who will come to 
be killed? Go and fetch them.” So the ghost of the 
elephant goes away and rejoins the other elephants, where 
he acts in the capacity of spiritual guardian, not to say, of 
decoy, to his successor in the herd. In this excellent frame 


.of mind the ghost is presumably confirmed by the Sky-god 


Leza, his 
wife, and 
his mother- 
in-law : 
story of 
the Origin 
of Death. 


Leza in return for the offering which he has received from 
the people.’ 

Leza is not conceived of as a solitary being. Accord- 
ing to one account, he had a wife and a family of five 
children, three sons and two daughters, likewise a mother 
and even a mother-in-law. When his mother died, he 
intended that she should come to life again, and he told his 
wife so. But she said, “ No, let her die, she has eaten all 
my beans in the field”. The argument was conclusive, and 
Leza acquiesced in the mortality of his mother. Five 
months later his mother-in-law died also, and his wife asked 
that she might rise from the dead. But the prospect of his 
mother-in-law returning to life was far from agreeable to the 
Supreme Being, and he repelled the idea with natural in- 
dignation. ‘“Shereturn!” cried he, “and my mother already 
rotten!” The wife said, “Do you refuse, husband?” He 
replied, “ Yes, I do refuse, for when my mother died you 
refused”. So his wife had to put up with it, and said, 
“Let her die then. This is the great death.” That is how 
death began in the world. It is all owing to the greed of 
Leza’s wife, who prevented the resurrection of her mother-in- 
law. Thereupon, Leza spoke to the people whom he had 
sent down to earth. He said, “I also shall die. And 
when my heir begins to weep, I shall descend to you and 
burn houses. Because here aloft my relation is dead, I 
shall kill you on earth.” So he sent down diseases and 
also medicines to cure them. Said he: “I give you both: 
when a person is sick, doctor him. If I will that he live, 
he will live; if I will that he die, he will die.” And having 
given Death to mankind, he also gave them a birth-medicine, 
that the race should not die out.” In this account. of the 

1 Smith and Dale, of. cé/. i. 168. 2 Smith and Dale, of. cit. i, 102. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 163 


Origin of Death the descent of Leza to earth and the 
burning of houses by him refer to the fall of rain and the 
destruction of dwellings by lightning. The reference to the Perhaps an 
death of Leza appears to imply that at the end of a rainy 27M. 
season the Sky-god dies, and that at the next rainy season his of Lezas. 
heir succeeds to his place and weeps for his predecessor in 

the falling rain.’ If this inference is correct, we seem 
obliged to suppose that, in the opinion of some at least of 

the Ba-Ila, there is not a single immortal Leza, but an end- 

less succession of them, who die and are mourned for every 

year, like the annual death and laments for Thammuz, 
Adonis, and Osiris in classical antiquity. 

Some confirmation of this conclusion is perhaps furnished The great 
by a native story which presents a curious analogy to ponees 
Plutarch’s famous tale of the death of the Great Pan. In Leza, the 
the year 1906 the Ba-Ila were found to be mourning for Sad 
the death of Mwana Leza, that is the Son of the Sky-god. 

It appeared that a certain man living somewhere in the 
north was one day out hunting. He had wounded a wart- 
hog and was following it. As he went through the open 
country, there appeared before him something bright and 
dazzling that reached from earth to heaven. The man fell 
to the earth like one dead. Then he heard a voice saying, 
“ Hast thou not heard that it is forbidden to eat the flesh of 
wart-hog? Stop following the tracks, and tell people that 
if they persist in eating that flesh there will be trouble. 
And—stay! Why is it that you people on earth have never 
lamented the death of Mwana Leza who died so many years 
ago? Bid them weep.” The man presently returned to 
his senses, and made his way home. He told the people 
what he had seen and heard, but they only Jaughed at him. 
A few days afterwards two people died very mysteriously 
in the village. That was enough to set them mourning. 
The deaths were accepted as a sign. “Leza is angry with 
us,” said they, “come, let us weep”. So they began to 
mourn as for a friend. Moreover, they sent messages to 
the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, and they 
in turn passed on the message to more distant villages, 
until in a short time the people all over the country were 


1 Smith and Dale, of, c77. i. 102. 


The son of 
the Sky- 
god said 
to have 
been killed 
by men. 


Smith and 
Dale on 
the story of 
Mwana 
Meza; 


164 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


mourning for the death of the Son of the Sky-god. In some 
places, perhaps in most, the matter was regarded in a most 
serious light. The people would gather outside the village, 
where the elders would solemnly warn them, that there must 
be no joking or playing. For more than a week the mourn- 
ing would be carried out and the ashes from all the fires 
collected and placed in a heap outside the village. Then a 
pole would be set up by the heap in token that they had 
obeyed Leza’s command to mourn the death of his Son. 
So the Sky-god would pass by them and not blast their 
village with lightning.’ 

According to another account Mwana Leza, the Son of 
the Sky-god, came down long ago in the country of Lusaka; 
he was kind and gentle and went about telling people to 
cease fighting. But they killed him at Chongo. His spirit 
now entefs into many prophetesses, who foretell events and 
urge people to live at peace with each other and to shed 
blood no more.” 

In the opinion of Messrs. Smith and Dale, to whom we 
owe a most valuable account of the Ba-Ila, the story of 
Mwana Leza is nota mere corruption of missionary teaching. 
In the district where they first heard of it there were then no 
missionaries, nor were there any in the northern district 
where the hunter saw the vision, nor in the districts of Lusaka 
and Chongo, where the Son of the Sky-god is said to have 
descended from heaven and to have been put to death. 
Moreover, there is every sign, they tell us, that the story is 
much older than the advent of missionaries among the 
Ba-Ila. Mwana Leza is a personage who figures in the 
folk-tales. Messrs Smith and Dale incline to think that the 
story is an offshoot of Christian teaching grafted upon 
an old native idea, and that while the tale may possibly 
have come to the Ba-Ila through other tribes from the 
preaching of Dr. Livingstone, it has more probably filtered 
through from the old Jesuit missions in Portuguese East or 
West Africa* If they are right, the old native idea on 
which the Christian teaching has been grafted might still be 
the conception of a Sky-god who dies every year and whose 


1 Smith and Dale, of. cz¢. 11. 145 sg. 3 Smith and Dale, of. cét. ii. 
2 Smith and Dale, op. cit. ii. 144 59. ° 146. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY [IN EASTERN AFRICA 165 


death is annually mourned at the beginning of the rainy 
season. What more natural than to take the dark rain- 
clouds for mourners weeping the death or the disappearance 
of the radiant God, whose azure image they have blotted 
out ? | 

Be that as it may, the Sky-god Leza, like many other Story of 
African Sky-gods, is associated with a story of the Origin of eae 
Death which in all probability is very ancient, since, with Leza, the 
minor variations, it occurs in the traditionary lore of many Sretieaees) 
African tribes scattered at immense distances from each re. 
other over the continent. The Ila version of the story runs 
as follows. The Sky-god Leza sent Chameleon to men 
with the message, “Go and tell men that they shall die and 
pass away for ever”. So Chameleon set out on his journey, 
but he travelled very slowly and often rested by the way. 
When God saw that Chameleon loitered, he sent Hare to 
men with another message, saying, “ Tell’ them that they 
shall die and return”. On his arrival Hare announced to 
the people, “You shall die and return”. But Chameleon 
contradicted him, saying, “ No, that is not what God sent us 
‘to say. He sent us, saying, ‘They shall die and pass away 
for ever’”. But Hare would not have it so. He stuck to 
it that God had said, “ They shall return”. Thereupon he 
went back to God in anger and said, “Yon person whom 
you sent has told men that they will pass away for ever”. 
“All right”, said the deity, “let it be so as he has told 


them”. That is the reason why men are mortal to this 
day.’ | 
In another Ila version of the tale the parts of the Another 


aiee 
Chameleon and the Hare are reversed. God sent Hare to apes 


men, saying, “Go and take a message of death to men. 
You go also, Chameleon, and take a message of life.” The 
Hare arrived first and announced, “ Men shall die and pass 
away for ever”, After he had delivered this message, up 
came Chameleon and said, “ Men shall die and ‘shall return”. 
But it was too late: the doom of men was sealed.’ 

We have seen that stories of the Origin of Death, 
conforming to the same type of the Two Messengers, 


1 Smith, and Dale, of. ¢7#. ii. 2 Smith and Dale, of. cet. i. 
100 sg. IOI. 


Belief of 
the Ba- 
Kaonde in 
a great 
Sky-god 
called 
Lesa. 


Lesa 
appealed 
to for rain, 


Oaths by 
Lesa. 


166 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


are commonly found among African tribes and always in 
association with the Supreme Being or Sky-god.' 


The Ba-Kaonde are a Bantu people inhabiting the 
Kasempa district of Northern Rhodesia. They immediately 
adjoin the: Ba-Ila, who occupy the land to the south-east of 
them. The Ba-Kaonde believe in the existence and power 
of a great Sky-god called Lesa, who in name and character 
appears to be substantially identical with the Leza of the 
Ba-Ila. They believe that Lesa created the first man and 
woman, and that he lives in the sky and manifests himself 
by thunder, lightning, rain, and the rainbow. He kills 
people not only by lightning but by sickness, accident, and 
so on. What we call natural deaths are sometimes supposed 
to be caused by him, but epidemics are more commonly 
viewed as his handiwork. He is married to a wife named 
Chandashi, who lives in the ground and manifests herself 
by earth tremors, which are common in the country but 
apparently do little damage. A native declared that he 
knew the tremors were produced by a woman, “ because she 
makes a lot of fuss and does nothing”. ” 

The only occasion when the Ba-Kaonde appeal and 
pray to Lesa is when they want rain, for they believe that 
rain is a gift of Lesa. There are no professional rain- 
makers in the tribe, but if the rainy season advances 
without rain falling the people pray directly to Lesa to send 
the needed showers, without which famine would ensue. 
Early in the morning of the day appointed a tall white pole 
is set up on the outskirts of the village, and all the people 
gather there, men, women, and children. The headman sits 
in the middle, near the pole, and the people sit in a circle 
round about him. Then he prays, “ Thou God (Lesa), we are 
all thy people. Send us rain!” At that all the people clap 
their hands and then return to the village. The pole is allowed 
to stand till it falls through the ravages of white ants or 
other causes, and when it falls it is left to rot where it lies.’ 

One of the names applied to Lesa by the Ba-Kaonde is 


1 See above, pp. 105 sg., 117, 133 Africa (London, 1923), pp. 154 sg. 
89.430. 
2 F. H. Melland, 7 Wietch-bound 3-F. HH, Melland, op, c#z, poss. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 167 


Shyakapanga, which seems to correspond to the Shakapanga 
(“the Constructor”) of the Ba-lla.. ° Under this name the 
Ba-Kaonde swear by Lesa, saying, “May Shyakapanga 
kill me!” ? ; 

Lesa created the first man and the first woman; the name Lesa 
of the man was Mulonga, and the name of the woman was Sita 
Mwinambuzhi. Now the honey-guide bird was a friend of and 
the man and the woman, and Lesa called the bird and gave *°" 
him three gourds, all of which were closed at both ends. 
“Go, take these”, he said, “to the man and woman whom I How 
have created, and open them not on the way. When you Ree 
hand them to the people, say unto them, ‘ Thus saith Lesa : and Beasts 
Open this one and that one which contain seeds for sowing, Site! 
so that you may have food to eat; but the third one ye !oose in the 
shall not open until I come. When I come 1 will instruct Monies He 
you as to the contents of the third package’”. The honey- 2ult of the 
guide bird took the gourds and went on his way, but, his guide bird. 
curiosity getting the better of him, he disobeyed the Creator 
and stopped to open them. In the first two gourds he found 
seeds of corn, of beans, and of other food-crops, and having 
examined them he put them back in the gourds, and closed 
the gourds as they had been before. He then untied the 
third gourd. But in it, alas! were Death, and Sickness, and 
all kinds of beasts of prey, and deadly reptiles. These all 
escaped from the gourd, and the honey-guide bird could not 
catch them. Then up came Lesa, and very angry was he, 
to be sure. He asked the bird where were the things that 
had escaped from the gourds, but the crestfallen bird could 
only reply that he did not know. So Lesa and he went in 
search of them, and sure enough they found the lion in his 
den, the snake in his lair, and so on with the rest of the 
noxious creatures, but to catch them and put them back in 
the gourd was beyond the power of Lesa and the honey- 
guide bird. Then Lesa said sternly to the bird, “ Thou hast 
sinned greatly, and the guilt is thine”. That frightened the 
bird, and he flew away into the forest and dwelt there, and 
he lived no longer with man. But whenever he hungered, 
he would come back to his old friends, the man and the 
woman, and call them to some honey which he had found ; 


1 See above, p. 156. 2 F. H. Melland, of. ctt. p. 160. 


168 WORSHIP OFC LAE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


and guided by him they would take the honey and leave a 


The art of 
making fire 
imparted 
by the 
Creator. 


Reliefof the 
Alunda in 

a Creator- 

god called 
Nzambi, 


little on the ground for him. Thus it was that death, sick- 
ness, and fear came to man. The painful situation was 
explained by the Creator with perfect frankness to the man 
and his wife. He justly laid all the blame on the honey- 
guide bird. “That bird”, said he, “isa great sinner. I told 
him that on no account was the third gourd to be opened 
until I came; but he disobeyed me. Thereby he has brought 
you much trouble. sickness, and death, not to mention the 
risks from lions, leopards, snakes, and other evil animals and 
reptiles. This I cannot help now, for these things have 
escaped and cannot be caught ; so you must build yourselves 
huts and shelters to live in for protection from them.” ? 

Few persons, probably, will be disposed to doubt that 
this frank and lucid explanation entirely exonerates the | 
Creator from all blame in the momentous transaction. To 
alleviate, as far as lay in his power, the disastrous effects of 
the honey-guide bird’s ill-advised curiosity, he kindly taught 
men to make fire by rubbing one stick on another; more 
than that he instructed them in the art of smelting iron and 
of fashioning axes, hoes, and hammers.” 

Among the Athads another Bantu tribe of Northern 
Rhodesia, whose territory adjoins that of the Ba-Kaonde on 
the north-west, the name of the Creator-god is not Lesa or 
Leza, but Nzambi, which, as we have seen, is the usual name 
of the deity throughout the valley of the Congo.* The 
Alunda believe that Nzambi is remote from mankind and 
inaccessible to them. Apart from the act of creation, his 
influence on human affairs is deemed to be indirect and 
negligible ; he is obscured by the vast crowd of tribal spirits 
who interfere directly in every phase of life on earth. Yet 
he is said to be the creator of all things, of vegetables and 
minerals as well as of animals; he also made all spiritual 
beings. “It is his business to make spirits in the tribal 
sense, but not in the family sense, except indirectly”. He 
is somewhat of a tribal deity, and the ancestor of the family 
spirits (akzshz) is supposed to have been made by him. His 
name is constantly used in oaths, “ Vsaimbze yami!/” that is 


1 F, H. Melland, of. cz¢. pp. 156- 2 F. H. Melland, of, cit. p. 159. 
159. 3 Above, pp. I4I sgg¢. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN: EASTERN AFRICA 169 


“My God!” both seriously and profanely; and in legal cases 
it is usual to swear to the truth of a statement by the name 
of Nzambi, Yet no prayers are offered to him, and he is 
not an object of worship. Indeed, he is hardly treated with 
reverence; for many jokes are cracked at his expense, and 
he is taunted with his stupidity in sending rain when it is 
not wanted, and so forth. Unlike the Ba-Kaonde, the Alunda 
do not pray to Nzambi for rain. But on the other hand 
they do pray for rain to the family spirits (akshz), that is, 
to dead ancestors, for these powerful beings are supposed to 
be able to turn on the celestial water-taps at certain seasons,’ 

It is said that in the twilight of antiquity Nzambi slid How ~ 
down to earth on a rainbow, and finding the earth a pleasant ay 
place he improved it by creating animals, trees, and so forth, man and 
Afterwards he created a man and a woman, and said to Peewee 
them, “Marry and beget children!” He also put spirits 
(akishz) into their bodies. He laid only a single prohibition Story of 
on mankind, and it was this, that none might sleep while esate 
the moon walked the skies, and the penalty for transgression 
of this command was to be Death. Well, when the first 
man grew old and his sight failed, it chanced one night that 
the moon was veiled behind clouds, and with his dim eyes 
the old man did not see her silvery light. So he slept, and 
sleeping died. Since then everybody has died because 
nobody can keep awake while the moon is up.” 

But while among the Alunda the Sky-god bears the Leza or 
name of Nzambi, his more usual appellation among the ren y: 
tribes of this region would seem to be Leza or Lesa, which name of the 
is said to be applied to him from the Kasai River in the ragheee a 
basin of the Congo on the west to Lake Nyasa on the east,? Africa. 
and from Lake Tanganyika on the north to the Zambesi 
River on the south.‘ 


4 : ; Names of 
Among the Bantu tribes of the Upper Zambesi the dullianale 


name for the Supreme Being or Sky-god varies ; the names on the 


which appear to be most frequently applied to him are Leza Pilea sg 


lJ. L. Keith, in F. H.. Melland; 3D. Campbell, /z the Heart of 
In Witch-bound Africa, pp. 162 sg. Bantuland (London, 1922), p: 246. 
4 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, 
2 J. L. Keith, in F. HI. Melland. § Zhe Great Plateau of Northern Rhodesia 
In Witch-bound Africa, pp. 164.sg. (London, 1911), p. 80. 


Belief of the 
Barotse in 
a powerful 
God and 
Creator 
called 
Niambe. 


Alarmed at 
the cunning 
of mankind, 
Niambe 
retreated to 
heaven. 


Prayers 
and sacri- 
fices to 
Niambe. 


170 WORSHTIP\OP LAE SK YVAN VAPKICH CHAP. 


and Nyambe (Niambe).' Thus among the Ba-Rotse or 
Ma-Rotse, who occupy a vast region traversed by the upper 
waters of the Zambesi almost from its source to a point 
beyond the great Victoria Falls, there is reported to exist 
the belief in an all-powerful god, the creator of the universe, 
to whom: they give the name of Niambe. To him as the 
great cause they ascribe everything that happens, whether 
good or evil; nothing can be done against his will. He is 
personified by the sun; yet the Ba-Rotse insist that the sun 
is not Niambe himself, but only his dwelling-place. ‘The 
moon is his wife, and from their union sprang the world, the 
animals, and last of all man. But the cunning, the in- 
telligence, and the audacity of man frightened his Creator. 
Having made himself spears, man went about killing the 
animals. At first the benevolent Niambe restored the dead 
creatures to life; but as man persisted in slaughtering them, 
Niambe was so much alarmed that he took refuge in heaven, 
to which he mounted up on a spiders web. From that 
coign of vantage he is able, at his pleasure, either to benefit or 
to injure mankind; that is why people pray to him, and 
sometimes offer him sacrifices. Thus in the morning, the 
worshipper of Niambe will make a little heap of sand and 
set a vessel full of water on the top of it; then when the 
sun appears on the horizon, the devotee will give the royal 
salute, raising his arms several times to the sky and crying “ Yo 
cho! Yocho!” After that, he falls on his knees and claps 
his hands. The water is offered to the god for his use in 
his journey across the sky; for it is natural to suppose 
that in the heat of the day the deity will be thirsty. 
Another reason for offering it to the rising sun is that every- 
thing good comes from the east, whereas everything bad 
comes from the west. In a long drought the people sacrifice 
to Niambe a black ox as a symbol of the black rain-clouds 
which they wish to see lowering overhead. Again, the 
women invoke Niambe before they sow their fields. At 
such times they gather all their hoes and the seed in a heap, 
and standing in a circle round the heap they address their 
prayers to the deity, beseeching him that he would be pleased 


1 E. Jacottet, Arudes sur les langues du Haut-Zambéeze, Seconde Partie, 
Textes Soubiya (Paris, 1899), p. 102. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA Tt 


to make their labour fruitful. In case of sickness, also, people 
consult a diviner, who ascertains the will of Niambe by 
means of his divining bones, and on receipt of a fee consents 
to heal the patient.’ 

Speaking of the Barotse and neighbouring tribes, an The sun 
explorer towards the end of the nineteenth century observed : sn Ys 
“These Upper Zambezi natives, like the Masarkwas and Barotse as 
many other African tribes, worship the sun as the visible ae 
sign of a great unseen God, and have been described to me unseenGod 
by a missionary as a very religious people. On the eve a Me 
of battle they petition their deity ; prior to starting on a 
hunting expedition they pray for success; and when they 
plant their gardens they ask for the blessings of Wzambe 
(God), though it must be confessed they seem to busy 
themselves much more in their endeavours to propitiate the 
evil spirits to whose malice they attribute all deaths as well 
as the troubles and misfortunes of this mortal life. In 
_ obeisance to the sun they kneel on the ground and lower 
the body until the forehead rests on the earth.” ” 

Yet though the Barotse recognize Niambe as _ the But the 
Supreme God, it is not to him, but to the inferior deities that ara 
they most frequently address their petitions. These lesser devotions 

: . ° chiefly to 
gods, to whom the people commonly turn in their distress, },. snirits 
are the spirits of their dead kings, who have been raised to of their 
the rank of divinities (dztim0). Their tombs are carefully stiches oh 
kept up, and it is to them that the worshippers resort in 
time of need to consult the royal ghosts.2 The tomb of such The tombs 
a deified king is always in the neighbourhood of the village pas 
which he inhabited in life. It regularly stands in a grove of 
beautiful trees, which is surrounded by a lofty palisade. 

The whole enclosure is sacred. No one may enter it except 
the guardian of the tomb, who is at the same time a sort of 
priest, for he acts as intermediary between the ghost of the 
dead king and the suppliants who come to implore his aid 
or ask his advice.* The range of these deified spirits is 
limited, for they are strictly attached to their tombs. They 


1 E. Béguin, Zes Ma-Rotsé(Lausanne Africa, 1895-1896 (London, 1898) p, 


et Fontaines, 1903), pp. 118 sg. 130. 
3 E. Béguin, Les Ma-Rotsé, p. 120. 
2 Captain A. St. H. Gibbons, Fx- 4 FE. Béguin, Les Ma-Xotsé, pp. 


ploration and Hunting in Central 120 59. 


Belief ofthe 
Louyi ina 
god 
Nyambe, 
who now 
dwells 

in the sky. 


Stories of 
the Origin 
of Death ;, 
Nyambe, 
his dog and 
his mother- 
in-law, 


THE SKY IN AFRICA 


WORSHIP OF CHAP, 


172 


have no relation to Niambe, who dwells in the sky and can 
be invoked anywhere, since his abode is in the. sun. He 
is the Supreme God, but the people know very little about 
him. Hence they prefer to address themselves to the local 
divinities, who were historical personages, national heroes, 
whose deeds are commemorated in legend. These mighty 
beings, now dowered with immortality, are alone in a position 
to succour or to punish mortals. Their tombs, scattered 
over the country, keep their names fresh in the memory of 
the people, who can name their deceased monarchs for ten 
generations back.’ 

The Louyi, another tribe of the Upper Zambesi, tell 
similar stories about Nyambe (Niambe). They say that he 
formerly lived on earth with his wife Nasilele, but that he 
ultimately retired to the sky for fear of men. For whenever — 
he carved one piece of wood, men were sure to carve 
another ; for example, if the deity whipped out his knife 
and cut a plate, men took their knives and cut out just 
such another. This was more than the deity could bear; so 
he mounted on a spider's web to heaven: ‘They say, 
indeed, that originally he had fallen down from heaven to 
earth.” | 

Be that as it may, the Louyi, like many other African tribes, 
attribute the origin of human mortality to the action of their 
Sky-god. They say that it fell out in this way. _Nyambe’s 
dog died, and Nyambe said, “ Let my dog live”. But his 
wife objected to the proposal on the ground that the dog was 
a thief. Nyambe pleaded for the animal, saying, “ For my 
part, I love my dog”. But his wife was inexorable. “ Cast 
him out”, she said peremptorily. So together they heaved 
him out. After that it happened that the deity’s mother-in- 
law departed this vale of tears. Her daughter, the wife of 


1 E. Béguin, Zes Ma-Rotsé, pp. 
122 sg. Compare L. Decle, Zhree 
Years 72 Savage Africa (London, 1898), 
p. 74: ‘*The Barotse chiefly worship 
the souls of their ancestors. When 
any misfortune happens, the witch- 
doctor divines with knuckle-bones 
whether the ancestor is displeased, and 
they go to the grave and offer up 
sacrifice of grain or honey. They 


believe in a Supreme Being, ‘ Niambe’ 

who is supposed to come and take 
away the spiritual part of the dead. 
Thus, to express a man dead, they 
say, ‘O Nkeloe had’ (he has been 
taken).”’ 

2. E. Jacottet, Etudes sur les langues 
du Haut-Zambéze, Troisiéme Partie, 
Textes Louyz (Paris, 1901), PP- 116 
lary ide? 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA We 


the deity, said to her divine husband, “ Let her come to life 
again’; .But the deity would nat hearof it. “By no 
manner of means”, he replied, “let her die and be done with 
it. I told you that my dog ought to come to life again and 
you refused ; well, it is my will that your mother die once 
for all.” The story is apparently told to account for the 
origin of human mortality ; but for the same purpose the 
Louyi tell another tale which conforms to the common type 
of the Two Messengers. They say that Nyambe and his 
wife sent the chameleon and the hare to bear messages to 
men. They told the chameleon to say to men, “ Ye shall 
live” ; and they told the hare to say to them, “ Ye shall die 
for good and all”. So off the two animals went to deliver 
their respective messages. But the chameleon kept returning 
on his footsteps, whereas the hare ran straight on. So he 
arrived before the chameleon and announced to men that 
they were to die for good and all. After he had delivered 
his message he returned. And still, when men die, they die 
for good and all, as the hare told them to do.’ 


Story of 
the ‘Two 
Messengers, 
the cham- 
eleon and 
the hare. 


The Louyi say that when Nyambe had climbed up to oe men 
the sky on the spider’s web, he said to men, “ Worship me” Seats 


to heaven 
and kill 
Nyambe : 


But, far from complying with this command, men said one 
mtoetiesotner. «leet us: kill Nyambe.. “lo carry. out. this 


nefarious design, they planted tall poles in the earth, and ae hee 
tied other poles to the tops of them, and so on to a great Babel. 


height. Then they swarmed up the poles, intending to 
beard Nyambe in heaven and murder him. But before they 
reached the sky, the poles tumbled down, and the men fell 
down with them and perished.” 


The Louyi allege that Nyambe is the sun. When the Nyambe 


» identified 


sun rises, they say, “ Behold our king, he has appeared ! 


with the 


They worship him saying, “ Wangwe! Mangwe! Mangwe ! Sun by the 


our King!” * 


Here accordingly the conception of the Sky- 


god appears to approach, if not to merge into, the conception 


of the god of the Sun. We 
of the Barotse the Sky-god 


1 E, Jacottet, Ztudes sur les langues 
du Llaut-Zambeze, Troisiéme - Partie, 
Lextes Louyt, pp. 116 sg. Compare 
the Ila stories, above, p. 165. 

2 E. Jacottet, Etudes sur les langues 


have seen that in the religion 
is closely associated with the 


- Au Haut-Zambéesze, Troisitme Partie, 


Textes Louyi, p. 118. 

3 E. Jacottet, Etudes sur les langues 
du Haut-Zambéze, Troisiéme Partie, 
Textes Louyt, p. 118. 


Louyi. 


The Sky- 
god called 
Leza by the 
Soubiya. 


An African 
Tower of 
Babel. 


Sacred trees 
in the 
worship of 
Leza. 


174 WORSLTIP) OF LATASR SY SNe ALT RICA CHAD, 


sun, and the same union or confusion of the Sky-god with 
the Sun-god will meet us in other tribes of Eastern Africa. 

The Soubiya, another tribe of the Upper Zambesi, tell 
similar tales of the Sky-god, but they call him Leza instead 
of Nyambe. They say that originally Leza was a very 
strong man who lived on earth. When he was in his hut 
(khotla ?), it was as if the sun were sitting there. So men 
stood in great fear of him. One day Leza ascended to the 
sky. They say that he spun a very long spider’s web and 
climbed up it to heaven. Some other people tried to climb 
up the spider’s web after him, but they could not manage 
it,,and they fell to the ground. ~ Dhen; theyssaid) “etuas 
put out the spider’s eyes”. So they caught the spider and 
put out its eyes. That is why the spider has been blind 
ever since; at least the Soubiya believe that the spider is 
blind.’ 

Afterwards men erected a very tall scaffold and said, 
“Let us go to heaven”. But they did not succeed, they 
tumbled down, and gave up the attempt for fear of being 
dashed to pieces. Aforetime men had dwelt with Leza 
under a great tree, one of the trees which the people call 
tbosu. Such trees are usually solitary; one of them is 
commonly to be found near a village. They are all sacred, 
and the natives deposit their offerings. under their shadow. 
Well, it was beneath one of these holy trees that the Soubiya 
dwelt of old with Leza. It was there that they performed 
the offices of religion, because they said that their chief 
lived there. They brought sheep and goats in great 
numbers to the tree, that Leza might have food to eat. 
One day Leza met a man under the tree and said to him, 
“Where do you come from?” The man answered, “I am 
bringing your goats”. Leza said to him, “ Return to your 
village and say: Thus saith Leza, when ye shall see a great 
dust, then shall ye know that it is Leza”. The man returned 
to his village and spoke as he had been commanded. One 
day the people saw a great dust: it was Leza. A hurricane 
blew: they knew that it was Leza. They gathered and sat 
down in the public place. LLeza came and took up his post 


1 E, Jacottet, Avades sur les langues  Textes Soubiya (Paris, 1899), pp. 102- 
du Haut-Zambése, Seconde Partie, 104. 


Vv WORSHIP OK THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 175 


in a tree. The people heard him speak as follows: “It is I, 
Leza; ye shall see me no more on-earth”. They looked 
up, but they could not see him. Even a man who asked 
Leza for snuff could not see him; all he saw was his snuff- 
box. Leza spoke to them thus, saying, “Worship my house”, 
and by his house he meant the sacred tree (zbozu) under 
which he had dwelt of old in the midst of his people.’ 

They say that Leza has a wife in the sky, to which he 
ascended. They say also that he has ason._ It is reported 
that Leza in his wrath would have killed all the men on earth, 
if his wife had not dissuaded him. He gave ear to her advice 
and relinquished his project of a general massacre. Another 
day it was his wife who, in her anger, would have slain the 
women, if her husband in his turn had not objected to the 
sanguinary proposal. Another day it was their son who 
thirsted for the blood of the children, his companions. But 
his father and mother were angry with him for his bloody 
purpose, and they beat him with rods, so that he wept. To 
this day, when men see stars shooting down from the sky, 
they utter cries and say that it is Leza, their chief, coming 
to examine his children who remain here on earth. They 
affirm that they were not created by Leza, but that they 
fell from a dry and withered tree.” } 

Leza said to a certain woman, “Thou shalt be the 
mother of all men. Thou shalt die, and then they will 
worship at thy tomb.” To this day, when they worship 
Leza, they bring red beads and say that Leza, their chief, 
hears them. They set up little tables on the spot where 
they worship him. When they worship him they clap their 
hands and say, “ We worship thee, O our chief, hear us. 
Thou art the great chief who givest with both hands.” 
When they worship thus, they bend their heads to the earth 
and lift their hands towards the sky. And when they have 
finished their supplications they return home, but only to 
come back and repeat their prayers, their obeisances, and the 
stretching out of their hands to heaven on the next occasion.* 

1 E, Jacottet, Arades sur les langues du Haut-Zambese, Seconde Partie, 
du Haut-Zambéze, Seconde Partie,  Zextes Soudtya, pp. 105 sg. 
Textes Soubiya, pp. 104 sg. 3 FE. Jacottet, Atedes sur Jes langues 


_ du Haut-Zambese, Seconde Partie, 
2 E. Jacottet, Ztudes sur les langues  Textes Soubiya, pp. 107 sq. 


Leza, his 
wife, and 
son, 


The 
worship 
of Leza. 


176 WORSH/P OF THE SKY TV" APKICA CHAP. 


Story of the The Soubiya explain the origin of human mortality by 
musi of stories like those which the Louyi tell on the same profound 


man, his subject.) One of the stories is that of a man, his dog, and 
dos, and _ his mother-in-law ; for in the Soubiya version the story is 
in-law. told, not of the Supreme God, but of an ordinary man, whose 
name is not recorded. In the Soubiya version the man 
shows himself less hard than Nyambe in the matter of his 
deceased mother-in-law; for when she died he made a 
_ successful attempt to bring her back to life, though when 
his dog had died his unfeeling wife had positively refused 
to let him resuscitate the animal. What happened was 
this. When his mother-in-law died, he at first would not 
hear of her resurrection; but at last, yielding to the en- 
treaties of her daughter, his wife, he said, “ Bring her into 
the hut”. So they brought her in; and when they had 
done so, the man went in search of a medicine which 
restores the dead to life. This he brought, and having 
cooked it, he gave it to the dead woman to eat. When she 
had done masticating it, she revived and sat up, looking ~ 
very fat. Then the man went out of the hut and said 
to his wife, “ Don’t open the door of that hut. If you do, 
your mother will die again.” His wife said, “ All right”. 
So he shut the door behind him and went away to dig 
up another medicine. But scarcely was his back turned 
when his wife opened the door of the hut, and there sure 
enough she saw her mother sitting up in the middle of the 
hut. But when her mother saw her, the heart went out of 
her, and she died for the second time. 

When the husband came back with the medicine he 
found his mother-in-law dead again. He asked his wife, 
“Did you open the door of the hut?” The woman 
answered, “Certainly it was not I”. “Who was it then 
that did it?” inquired the husband. “I don’t know,” quoth 
she. Then the man said, “I'll resuscitate your mother.no 
more”. But his wife said, “I implore you, do resuscitate 
her”. “Certainly not,” replied her husband, “I am tired of 
resuscitating your mother; I will not do it again. Bury 
her”. So they buried her. Then the man said, “ Hence- 
forth all men will die thus, just like your mother”. It was 


1 See above, pp. 172 sg. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRIGA 177 


thus that Death entered into the world through the decease 
of a man’s dog and of his mother-in-law.? 

But the Soubiya also tell that other and more usual Another 
story to account for the origin of death which we may call °° 


the Origin 
the Story of the Two Messengers ; and they relate it in the of Death : 


ordinary and orthodox form, in which the two messengers Eee 
are a chameleon and a lizard. They say that the chameleon aa aig 
was sent by Leza to men to tell them, “ Ye men, when ye 

shall see somebody die, say not that he is really dead ; nay, 

he is not really dead ; men will come to life again”. So 

the chameleon set off with this cheering intelligence. But 
when the chameleon had got about half way, Leza said to 

the lizard, “Go and say, men will die and will not come to 

life again. Begone: if you find the chameleon already 
arrived, say nothing ; but you find that he has not yet 
come, tell men that they will die of a truth and not come 

to life again.” When the lizard set out, he ran and overtook 

the chameleon who was crawling slowly and had not yet 
arrived at the men’s village. So the lizard passed him and 

ran on. He came to the men and said to them, “ Leza says 

that ye shall die of a truth and not come to: life again”, 
Then he returned to Leza and told him, “I found that the 
chameleon had not arrived among men”. Leza thanked him. 

As for the chameleon, the storyteller did not know what 
became of him.? 


The Nyanja or Manganja are a Bantu people who Bre vanle 
inhabit the Shire highlands and the southern shores of Lake } Reneenin 
Nyasa, both on the western and to a lesser extent, on the 
eastern side of the lake. About the middle of the nineteenth 
century the northern Nyanja tribes, to the west of the lake, 
were conquered by a tribe of Zulus, called the Angoni, who 
invaded the country from the south, and imposed some of 
their habits and customs on the Nyanja, but adopted their 
language. At the present time the Zulu language has 
entirely given place to Nyanja (Chinyanja) in one or other 
of its dialects; thus most of the inhabitants of Central 


1 E. Jacottet, Etudes sur les langues 2 E., Jacottet, Etudes sur les langues 
du Haut-Zambéze, Seconde Partie, du Haut-Zambeze, Seconde Partie, 
Textes Soubtya, pp. 109 sq. Textes Soubiya, pp. 111-114. 


VOL, I | | N 


Mulungu, 
the name 
for God 
among the 
Nyanja, 


Other 
names for 
the deity. 


Ideas of the 
Nyanja 
about the 
deity. 


178 WORSATP OF5 FI EASE VAIO AT Riis CHAP, 


Angoniland, to the west of Lake Nyasa, are of Zulu descent, 
but speak the Nyanja language. Another tribe who harried 
and raided the Nyanja were the Yaos; it was under the 
pressure of these more warlike neighbours that a body of 
Nyanja settled on the eastern shore of Lake Nyasa.’ 

Among the Nyanja the general name for god is Mulungu 
or Mlungu, which appears in Swahili as Muungu, and in 
Lomwe and Makuwa as Mluku. Under this term are in- 
cluded not only the deity, but all that appertains to the 
spirit world. Whether in its primary sense it conveys the 
idea of personality is uncertain, for the word belongs to an 
impersonal class of nouns, and always takes the concord of 
an impersonal class. When, however, the deity is alluded 
to in respect of any of his attributes, there is no doubt that 
personality is attributed to him, as when the Nyanja speak 
of “Leza, the Nurse”, ‘“ Mlengi, the Creator”, “ Mphambi, 
the heavens”, and “ Chauta, the Almighty”. Other names 
are also applied to the Supreme Being, as Chanjiri, 
Chinsumpi, Mbamba, Mphezi, but these are generally con- 
fined to certain local manifestations of the deity in the 
persons of men who claim to possess the divine powers and 
to be invested with the divine attributes. For example, in 
the year Ig1o an individual appeared in South Angoniland 
who arrogated to himself the possession of such powers 
under the name of Chanjiri, the Supreme God. In that 
capacity he demanded offerings from the people and forbade 
them to pay the annual tax to the British Government. 
Whilst the names Leza and Chauta are the common appel- 
latives of the deity among the neighbouring Awemba and 
Atonga, the name Mulungu is universally understood to 
stenify the Supreme Being, and among the Nyanja people 
it is the only name in use.” 

But by whatever names they call him, we are assured 
by a careful and competent inquirer that the Nyanja believe 
in one all-powerful Being who has his abode in or above the 


1 L. T. Moggridge, ‘‘The Nyassa- land Rattray, Some Folk-lore Stories 
land Tribes”, Journal of the Anthropo- and Songs in Chinyanja (London, 
logical Institute, xxxil. (1902) pp. 467, 1907), p. Viil. 

468; A. Hetherwick, s.v. ‘‘ Nyanjas ”, 2 A. Hetherwick, s.v. ‘‘ Nyanjas”, 
in J. Hastings’ Hvcyclopaedia of Re- in J. Hastings’ Eucyclopaedia of Re- 
ligion and Ethics,ix. 419; R.Suther- /igion and Ethtcs, ix. 419 sq. 


V MORSTINGEOP LTE SK IN EASTERN AFRICA 179 


sky. He is supposed to be the creator of all things and to 
rule the great forces and phenomena of nature, such as rain, 
thunder and lightning, earthquakes, and winds. He has 
many names, such as Chauta or Chiuta, Leza, Chanjiri, and 
Mpambe, but they all signify the one great Power. He is 
not a spirit (#szimw) in the native sense, for szstmu, as 
understood by the Nyanja, is the soul of a human being 
who once lived on earth. The deity of the Nyanja is rather, 
we are told, “a supreme power having in him the nature of 
a soul of the universe, but here the resemblance to the 
Creator of the civilizea peoples of the earth ends, for the 
Supreme Being [of the Nyanjas] takes no concern whatever 
in the affairs of mankind, as the spirits do. He is totally 
indifferent to good or evil, nor is he even appealed to in 
temporal matters as are the spirits of ancestors, except only 
in cases of drought.” ! 

If the rains do not come at the expected time, the Nyanja 
say, “Look at this, the rain keeps refusing to fall from 
above; come, let us try to propitiate the rain spirit, and 
perhaps the rain may come”. So they collect maize, and 
grind and pound it, and they boil the beer and pour it into 
a gourd-cup, and next morning at dawn they all come to- 
gether and they go to the rain temple, taking the beer with 
them. Now the rain temple is a miniature hut about two 
feet high, or it may be two or three such little huts built 
close together. The temple is generally in the village, but 
sometimes it stands in the forest. And when they are come 
to the temple, they clear away the grass that the ground 
may be open. He who is chief of the ceremony sits in the 
middle, and first draws some of the beer, and pours it in a 
pot buried in the ground, and says, “ Master Chauta, you 
have hardened your heart towards us, what would you have 
us do? We must perish indeed. Give your children the 
rains. There is the beer we have given you.” Then the 
people begin to clap their hands and to make a shrill sound, 
clicking their tongues against their cheeks ; they sing also, 
swaying their bodies backwards and forwards, and keep 
saying, “ Pardon, pardon”. When they have done propitiat- 
ing the rain spirit, they take the beer that remains, and dip 

1 R, S. Rattray, Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs in Chinyanja, p. 198. 


Prayers. of 
the Nyanja 
to the deity 
for rain, 


180 WORSHIP OF THE SEY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


a cup in it, and give every one to drink, just a little; even 
the children must sip it. After that they take branches of 
trees and begin to dance and sing, saying, 
“ This little cloud, and this, 
This little cloud, and thts, 
Let the rains come with this little cloud. 
Give us water, 
Our hearts are dry, 
Krole. 
Give us water, 
Our hearts are dary, 
Krole.” 
When they come to the village they find that an old woman 
has drawn water in readiness and put it at the doorway; 
and the people dip their branches in the water and wave 
them aloft, scattering the drops. Then they see the rain 
come in heavy storm-clouds.' Thus the prayer for rain 
addressed to Master Chauta, the Rain-god, is reinforced. by a 
pantomime in imitation of a shower; in short, the Nyanja, 
like so many other peoples, supplement religion by magic. 
The Yaos The Yaos or Wayas are a Bantu tribe who dwell at the 
ae | southern end of Lake Nyasa and farther to the south in the 
Shire Highlands. Their original home seems to have been 
the large and lofty plateau which lies to the east of Lake 
Nyasa and is bounded by the Rivers Rovuma and Lujenda. 
From there they were driven westward to the lake and 
southward to the mountains by the pressure of enemies 
about the:time when Livingstone first entered their country.” 
Physically they are said to be the finest of the South Nyasa 
tribes and to be remarkable for a higher sense of personal 
decency and a lower standard of morality than their neigh- 
bours.® Their theology seems to resemble that of the Nyanja. 
Beliefofthe Like them, the Yaos believe in a Creator whom they call 
aos" Mulungu. They say that Mulungu made the world, and 
Mace man, and animals. Far in the interior of the continent, | 
' towards the north-west, beyond the plains and swamps of 
the Loangwa River and Lake Bangweolo, there lies, in Yao 


1R. S. Rattray, Some Folklore Central Africa”, Journal of the Anthro- 
Stories and Songs in Chinyanja, pp. pological Institute, xxxii. (1902) p. 89. 
118,5g., with the note on pp. 204 sg. 3 L. T. Moggridge, ‘‘ The Nyassa- 
2 A. Hetherwick, ‘‘Some animistic land Tribes”, Journal of the Anthrofo- 
Beliefs among the Yaos of British  J/ogtcal /mstitute, xxxii. (1902) p. 468. 


Vv WORSTIF OF THE SKY IN LASTERN AFRICA 181 


legend, a lake, and in the midst of the lake is an island, and 
in the island is a large flat rock, and on the rock are the 
footprints of men and animals of all kinds. When that rock 
was a heap of moist clay, Mulungu created all living things 
and sent them across the soft mass, where their footprints, 
now hardened into solid rock, may be seen to this day. 
Such is the Yao story of the creation of the world, or at all 
events of living creatures. To the mind of the people 
Mulungu is always the Great Creator.’ To him is ascribed 
the sending of the rain, but apparently he has no part in 
giving good crops or causing a plentiful harvest, neither does 
he take any direct interest in human affairs.” However, he 
is thought to receive the spirits of the dead. If he refuses 
to receive a man’s spirit, that man continues to live. When 
a patient has recovered from some malady which commonly 
proves fatal, the natives say, “ Mulungu refused him”, or 
“Mulungu spat him out”. 

Nevertheless it appears that in this sense Mulungu is Ideas of 
hardly conceived of as a personal being. Indeed we are ‘V° **° 
informed that the untaught Yao refuses to ascribe to Mulungu. 
Mulungu any idea of personality. To him the word denotes 
rather “a quality or faculty of the human nature whose 
signification he has extended so as to embrace the whole 
spirit world”. Hence the term is employed to designate the 
world of spirit in general or, more properly speaking, the 
aggregate of the spirits of all the dead.* But apart from its 
use in this collective sense the word mulungu denotes any The word 
single human soul after death ; for the Yaos believe that the Serie 
soul survives the death of the body, and that in its dis- any human 
embodied state it exercises a potent influence on the lives UU" 
and fortunes of those whom it has left behind in the world. 

Hence the souls of the dead are powers to be honoured and Worship of 
sie . ° : pa the dead. 

propitiated, and their worship enters largely into the religious 

and social life of the Yaos. In almost every Yao village 

there is a shrine which forms the centre of the worship of 


1 A. Hetherwick, of. czt. p. 94. earth”, which seems to contradict the 
2 H. S. Stannus, ‘‘The Wayao of _ testimony of the Rev. Dr. Hetherwick, 
Nyasaland”, Harvard African Studies one of our highest authorities on the 
(Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A., 1922), tribes of Nyasaland. 
p. 312. Dr. Stannus adds, ‘‘ Nor is 3-H. S. Stannus, of. czt. p. 313. 
he ‘God the Creator’, of man or 4 A. Hetherwick, of. cz¢. p. 94. 


Shrines on 
the graves 
of dead 
chiefs. 


Ambiguity 
consequent 
on the 
dlouble use 
of the word 
Mulungn. 


182 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


the inhabitants. It is a wooden hut enclosed by a strong 
fence or hedge of cactus, and is built on the grave of a dead 
chief. The soul (sulungu) of the chief is supposed either 
to inhabit the hut or at least to be there accessible to his 
worshippers. The worship paid to the soul of the deceased 
chief, or indeed to the soul of any dead man, is called 
kulomba mulungu. Ifa chief is about to go to war or to 
undertake a long journey, he must lay an offering at the 
shrine of his dead predecessor in order to secure his favour 
and help. If a long drought threatens to spoil the harvest, 
the deceased ruler must be entreated to send the needed 
rain. The living chief or any near relative of the deceased 
acts as priest on the occasion. He opens the gate of the 
fence, pours beer into the pot at the head of the grave, and 
deposits a basket of porridge and a plate of meat on the 
sepulchral mound. Then he retires, and kneeling down out- 
side the gate looks towards the shrine, and chants his prayer. 
Meanwhile all the people who have accompanied him clap 
their hands in unison with his utterances and chant the 
responses. But it is only the graves of chiefs or headmen 
which are thus treated as shrines and become the seat of 
worship. Common foll and slaves are buried in the wilder- 
ness, where only the rank grass or a thicket of old trees 
marks their last place of rest. No offerings are ever carried 
thither, for they who sleep in these neglected graves can 
have no influence in the spirit world, and therefore cannot 
affect the fortunes of the living." 

But where the same word Mulungu is applied indifferently 
to the Creator and to the soul of a dead chief, it may some- 
times be difficult to discriminate between these two very 
different sorts of being, and there must be a certain danger 
of confusing the one with the other. The ambiguity does 
not exist, or at all events is greatly lessened, in languages 
which draw a sharp line of. distinction between the two 
different kinds of beings by assigning a name like Leza or 
Nyambe to the Creator and a totally different name to the 
inferior spirits. But among the Yao, when we hear of worship 
paid to Mulungu (Aulomba mulungu), it may often be open 
to doubt whether it is the Creator or a deified chief who is 


1 A. Hetherwick, of. cz, pp. 92 59. 


Vv WORSTIP CPOLHE SAVIN EASTERN APRICA 183 


supposed to receive the adoration of the worshippers. Tor 
example, outside of a village or beside a headman’s hut may 
often be seen a rough shed in which the first-fruits of the 
new crop are placed by the villagers as a thank-offering for 
the harvest. Again, a small offering of flour or beer is 
occasionally set at the foot of the tree in the village court- 
yard, where men sit and talk or work. Again, a devout 
native, sitting down to a meal, will throw a morsel of food 
at the root of the nearest tree as an offering to Mulungu 
Delore ner begins to, eat. “.Once” more, a‘itraveller:on a 
journey will sometimes stop and lay a little flour in a 
pyramidal heap at the foot of a tree by the wayside or at 
an angle where two roads meet. All these acts of worship 
are addressed to Mulungu; but whether the Mulungu in 
question is the Creator, or the soul of a dead chief, or some 
other spirit, we are not told, and perhaps the native himself 
might be at a loss to tell. “The distinction in the native 
mind”, we are told, “is ever of the haziest. No one will 
sive you a dogmatic statement of his belief on such points.” ! 

Of the Angoni or Ngoni, who inhabit a treeless and TheAngoni 
undulating tableland about four thousand feet above sea ae i 
level, to the west of Lake Nyasa, we are told that, “although God, the 
they do not worship God, it is nevertheless true that they Pants 
have a distinct idea of a Supreme Being. The Ngoni cal] thet he has 
him Umkurumgango, and the Tonga and Tumbuka call him ae 


the govern- 
Chiuta. It may be that the natives, from an excess of ment of the 
reverence as much as from negligence, have ceased to offer ae 
him direct worship. They affirm that God lives: that it is SP 
He who created all things, and who giveth all good things, 

The government of the world is deputed to the spirits, and 

among these the malevolent spirits alone require to be 
appeased, while the guardian spirits require to be entreated 

for protection by means of sacrifices. I once had a long 
conversation on this subject with a witch-doctor who was a 
neighbour for some years, and the sum of what he said was, 

that they believe in God who made them and all things, but 

they do not know how to worship Him. He is thought of 


1 A, Hetherwick, ‘‘Some animistic  <Axnthropalogical Institute, xxxii. (1902) 
Beliefs among the Yaos of British pp. 94 sy. 
Central Africa”, Journal of the 


Worship 
of the 
Supreme 
God 
eclipsed by 
that of the 
ancestral 
Spirits. 


Chiwuta, 
the god of 
the 
Tumbuka, 


184 WORSHIP OPTLAEGSE YRIN ALN ICew CHAP, 


as a great chief and is living, but as He has the ancestral 
spirits with Him they are His amaduna (headmen).. The 
reason why they pray to the amadhlozi (spirits) is that these, 
having lived on earth, understand their position and wants, 
and can manage their case with God. When they are well 
and have plenty no worship is required, and in adversity 
and sickness they pray to them. The sacrifices are offered 
to appease the spirits when trouble comes, or, as when 
building a new village, to gain their protection.” } 

In this account of the Supreme Being of the Angoni we 
recognize the familiar features of the Creator who has made 
and ordered all things, but who has long since retired from 
the active management of affairs, leaving them in the hands 
of subordinate agents, and whose worship has been almost 
wholly thrown into the shade by that of the ancestral spirits | 
or ghosts. We are not expressly told that his abode is in 
the sky, and that he maintains a general control over rain, 
thunder, and lightning; but the analogy of many similar 
deities in Africa suggests that he possesses these attributes 
in common with them. : 

The same may perhaps be said of the God of the 
Tumbuka, another tribe of the same region, whose country 
lies to the west of Lake Nyasa and adjoins that of the 
Ngoni. We are told that “they believe in God, but this is 
one of the least influential articles of their faith, for God 
is to them an absentee deity. He is called Chiwuta, which 
might mean the great bow, but apparently does not, at least 
no native will agree that the name has any relation to the 
bow of the firmament, or of the Avenger, or any other kind 
of bow. What the root of the word is, no one seems yet to 
have discovered. Chiwuta is known as the creator, and the 
master of life and death. By him the world was made, and 
everything that has life. It is He who sends the great 
diseases, like rinderpest and smallpox, and He too is the 
sender of death. The only characteristic of God that the 
raw native is sure of is this, ‘He is cruel for it is He who 
takes away the children’, but where He lives, and what He 
thinks they do not know. To the general imagination He 


1 W. A. Elmslie, Among the Wild Neont (Edinburgh and London, 1899), 
p. 67 59. 


¥ WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 185 


has withdrawn from the world, and has nothing to do with 
it, beyond sending death or disease... I do not think that I 
have yet found that prayers were addressed to the Creator 
God, though they were frequently offered to the local deities, 
who also, when they were not named by their personal titles, 
were called Chiwuta. The Creator was too unknown and 
too great for the common affairs of man.”* On the other 
hand, among the Tumbuka, as among so many other Bantu 
tribes, the most active spiritual agents are believed to be the 
ancestral spirits, which are supposed to be everywhere and 
to be continually intervening for good or evil in human 
affairs, though their influence is limited to the concerns of 
their kinsfolk.’ 

Among the Bantu tribes of the great plateau of Northern Leza, the 
Rhodesia, to the west of Lake Nyasa, the conception of the Pete) 
Creator or Supreme Being, whom they call Leza, is still tribes of 
vague ; his attributes, it is reported, are still in process of Reyer 
evolution. From one point of view Leza seems to be 
regarded rather as a physical force than as a personal deity. 
Thunder, lightning, rain, earthquakes, and other natural 
phenomena are grouped together as manifestations of Leza. 

From another and perhaps later point of view, Leza emerges 
as a personal deity, the greatest of all the spirits. To the 
Awemba, an important tribe of the great plateau, the thunder 
is “God himself who is angry”, the lightning is “the Knife 
of God”. Leza is said to be the creator of life and death. story of 
According to a fable told by the Awemba, the deity created the Origin 
a man and woman, who increased and multiplied and the two | 
replenished the earth. To this first pair the Creator Leza bun: 
gave two small bundles, in one of which was life (dz27), and 
in the other was death (#2/zva); but unhappily the man chose 
“the little bundle of death ”.* 

Yet among some of these tribes of the plateau, as among tLeza 
so many other African tribes, the great god whom they cal] thought to 
Leza is believed to stand aloof from the lower world. from:the 
Serene and imperturbable he controls the heavens, but does *#2%'s of 


this lower 
not concern himself with the destinies of mortals. Hence world. 


1 Donald Fraser, Winning a Primi- 3 C. Gouldsbury and H, Sheane, 7he 
tive People (London, 1914), pp. 1205g. Great Plateau of Northern Rhodesia 
2 Donald Fraser, of. cit, p. 124. (London, 1911), pp. 80 sg. 


‘The more 
progressive 
tribes think 
that Leza 
takes an 
interest in 
human 
affairs. 


Prayers 
and 
sacrifices 
not offered 
to Leza, 
but to the 
ancestral 
spirits, 


-avenge., 


186 WORSHILP OF LHEVSK YEN ALRICA CHAP. 


the people do not conceive of Leza as a moral being against 
whom it ts possible to sin by those breaches of the moral 
law which the inferior spirits are quick to mark and to 
Leza still remains “the incomprehensible” (Lesa 
nt shimwelenganya). ‘“ How otherwise”, ask the Wemba old 
men, “has he caused the firmament, the sun, moon, and 
stars to abide over our heads without any staypoles to 
uphold them?” “Were Leza by himself”, say the Wal- 
ambia, “we should never die of disease ; it is the evil spirits 
and their allies the wizards who cause swift death.” Leza 
only brings at the fit and proper time the gentle, painless 
death of old age (#fwa Leza). Among many of the ancient 
tribes who dwell in the mountain fastnesses of the North 
Luangwa district this theory of an impassive God still 
obtains,’ ' 

But among the more progressive tribes of the plateau, 
such as the Wabisa and Awemba, a further stage in the 
evolution of the godhead has been reached. They think that 
Leza takes an interest in human affairs, and though they do 
not pray to him, they nevertheless invoke him by his names 
of praise, in which his attributes are gradually unfolded, and 
he becomes in a sense the Protector and Judge of mankind. 
The Cunning Craftsman, the Great Fashioner, the Nourisher, 
the Unforgetful, the Omniscient, all occur in the laudatory 
titles of Leza. Again, he is thought to receive the souls of 
men after death. According to the Awiwa, the soul at its 
departure from the body goes down to the spirit world to 
God (kustinu ku Lesa), who not only sways the heavens but 
judges the spirits of the departed.” 

Yet, so far as the dominant Wemba tribe is concerned, 
the worship of Leza forms no part of the ordinary religion. 
Prayers and sacrifices are not offered to him but to the 
great tribal and ancestral spirits. For upon a belief in the 


! Gouldsbury and Sheane,,. of. cz. 
Leos 

2 Gouldsbury and Sheane, of. cét. 
p. 81. Compare J. H. West Sheane, 
‘*Some aspects of Awemba religion 
and superstitious observances”, Journal 
of the Anthropological Institute, Xxxvi. 
(1906) pp. 150 sgg. According to 
Mr. Sheane (pp. 150 sg.), Leza ‘‘is 


the judge of the dead, and condemns 
thieves, adulterers, and murderers to 
the state of Vibanda, or Viwa (evil 
spirits), exalting the good to the rank 
of mipashz, or benevolent spirits. There 
is no special worship of Leza, for he 
is to be approached only by appeasing 
the inferior spirits, who act as inter- 
cessors.” 


a 


V WORSHIP OF THE SEY IN EASTERN AFRICA 187 


existence of powerful spirits of nature and spirits of the dead, 
the whole fabric of Wemba religion has been built up.’ 
Speaking of the natives of a Tanganyika plateau in 
general, without distinction of tribe, a French traveller, 
Lionel Decle, reported that “these people have a vague sort 
of Supreme Being called Lesa, who has good and evil 
passions; but here, as everywhere else, the Musimo, or 
spirits of the ancestors, are a leading feature in the beliefs. 
They are propitiated as elsewhere by placing little heaps of 
stones about their favourite haunts. At certain periods 
of the year the people make pilgrimages to the mountain 
of Fwambo-Liambo, on the summit of which is a sort of 
small altar of stones. There they deposit bits of wood, to 
which are attached scraps of calico, flowers, or beads: this is 
to propitiate Lesa. After harvest, for instance, they make such 
an offering. So, when a girl becomes marriageable, she takes 
food with her and goes up the mountain for several days. 
When she returns the other women lead her in procession 
through the villages, waving long tufts of grass and palms.” ” 


The Konde are a tribe who inhabit a territory at the 
extreme north end of Lake Nyasa, in what used to be 
German East Africa but is now known as Tanganyika 
Territory. Their land is for the most part shut in between 
steep mountains and the lake: on the north rises the 
massive volcano, Mount Rungwe.® The Konde believe in a 
god named Mbamba or Kiara, who with his children dwells 
above the firmament. His shape is human and his com- 
plexion is a shining white. Apparently he is a personifica- 
tion of the bright sky. Prayers are offered to him, and in 
them he is addressed as Father. Of this deity the Moravian 
missionaries report that “a conception of God is imprinted 
on the whole people. A god there is who, on the one hand, 
stands above everything else and is invoked as such, but 
who, on the other hand, in consequence of his impotence 
and weakness, occupies but a humble position in their minds. 

1 Gouldsbury. and Sheane, /7.c. As Savage Africa (London, 1898), p. 
to the spirits of nature (mz/ungu) and =. 293. 
the spirits of the dead (mzpashz), see 3 F, Fiilleborn, Das deutsche Njassa- 


id, pp. 82 sgq. und Ruwuma-Gebiet, Land und Leute 
2 Lionel Decle, Zhree JVears in (Berlin, 1906), p. 266. 


L. Decle 
on Leza 
and the 
ancestral 
spirits. 


Mbampba or 
Kiara, the 
god of the 
Konde, 
apparently 
a personi- 
fication of 
the sky. 


188 WORKSHITP OF THE SEY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


The religious behaviour of the people is characterized by a 
mixture of respect and contempt, of worship and neglect. 
With regard to his essence, the seat of his kingdom, and the 
The Konde most of his qualities, they are in the dark.”* According to 
sire an Ole account the Konde also worshipped an evil principle or 
evil spirit. personal devil, whom they called Mbassi, and attempted to 
spel appease by offerings ; but according to another, and perhaps 
more probable account, Mbassi is only another name of the 
Sky-god imported among the Konde by a priestly family 

from Ukinga.’ 
Another However, the belief of the Konde in two distinct gods, a 
account ©! good one and a bad one, is confirmed by Mr. D. R. Mackenzie, 
the Konde who lived for twenty-four years among the tribes at the north 
Sud ACen end of Lake Nyasa. According to him, the name most 
anda bad commonly applied by the Konde to the Supreme Being is. 
Sr ccunin: Kyala, and the name of the evil deity is Mbasi.2 But the 
name Kyala is not confined to the Supreme Being, “ for it 
may be applied to persons in whom the Deity dwells, or to 
men who, though they lived on earth, were yet Aya/a. The 
name is sometimes applied to white men, who are dangerous 
because they are believed to have closer relations with the 
Kiostearetiog. source of all power than common men have. Other names 
Supreme are ZYenende, the Owner of all things ; Wkurumuke, the Un- 
rene dying One; Chata, the Originator; Ayaudbzrz, the Unseen ; 
~" Kalest, He who is everywhere present. The name 
Nadorombwike is the one used on solemn occasions, and 
comes from the verb, kutoromboka, to create in a sense in 
which God only can. A/perz, again, is the Maker, applied to 
God only, though the verb from which it is derived may be 
The applied to men also. Prayer is addressed directly to *he 
peal ancestral spirits, who in many cases are conceived as having 
asked to power of themselves to grant a petition ; but more frequently 
invercee they are entreated to carry the petitions to God, who alone 
Supreme can give what is asked for. ‘ Why do you ask me for rain?’ 
noth says Chungu,* when his impatient people come to him, ‘ God 
1 F, Fulleborn, of. cz¢, p. 316. 4 The title of the priestly king. 
2.) Filleborn, of. ci#. pp. 316.59. Formerly he was not suffered to die a 
natural death ; when he fell seriously 
3D. R. Mackenzie, Zhe Spirit- ill, it was the duty of his councillors to 


ridden Konde (London, 1925), pp. kill him by stopping his breath. See 
178 sgy., 185 sgq. D. R. Mackenzie, of. czt, pp. 68-70. 





Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN: EASTERN AFRICA 189 


owns the rain, and only He can give it.’ ‘But,’ reply the 
people, ‘common men cannot pray.. Pray you to your 
ancestors, and let them carry your prayer to God. There is, 
however, also direct address in the formula, ‘ Be gracious to 
us, O God, and hear the prayers of those whom we have 
named’, the reference being to the spirits, to whom the main 
body i the petition is addressed.” ’ 

Of this Supreme Being, we are told, there is little that Scanty and 
can be said with certainty except that the people assuredly ;onctns | 
believed in him before the white men came and Christianity concerning 
was taught. Indications of the belief are found everywhere Seats 
in the native mind, inextricably intertwined with life and 
thought and language, with prayer and sacrifice, with birth 
and death, with famine and pestilence and sword. But for 
the rest there is much confusion, and no developed theology 
exists. What one informant will give as common belief, 
another will say that he never heard of; it belongs, he will tell 
you, to another district, but it was not the belief of his fathers.” 

The Supreme Being is thought to reveal himself in diverse Modes in 
manners. Anything great of its kind, such as a great ox or Uae 
even a great he-goat, a huge tree, or any other impressive Godreveals 
object, is called Kyala, by which it may be meant that God ane 
takes up his abode temporarily in these things. When a 
great storm lashes the lake into fury, God is walking on the 
face of the waters; when the roar of the waterfall is louder 
than usual, it is the voice of God. The earthquake is caused 
by his mighty footstep, and the lightning is Lesa, God 
coming down in anger. When men see the lightning, they 
sit silent or speak in whispers, lest the angry God should hear 
them and smite them to the earth. God sometimes comes 
also in the body of a lion or a snake, and in that form he 
walks about among men to behold their doings. For he is 
a God of righteousness and never comes but when evil is 
rampant and vengeance is called for. Hence what the people 
desire above all things is that God should go away again. 

“Go far hence, O God, to the Sango, for Thy House is very 
large”, is a prayer that is not seldom heard on the lips of 
the Konde when they think that God is near. They look 


1D. R. Mackenzie, Zhe Spirit- 2D. R. Mackenzie, Zhe Spirit- 
ridden Konde, pp. 179 sq. ridden Aonde, p. 178. 


Offerings 
made to 
the spirits, 
but not to 
the Great 
God. 


Sacred 
groves of 
Mbamba or 
Kiara : 
prayers 
offered to 
him. 


Sacred 

grotto of 
Mbamba 
or Kiara, 


190 WORSAIP OF THE SK VAIN AFRICA CHAP, 


on an eclipse as a special visitation of the deity, and greet 
it with wild drumming and shouting, with entreaties and 
confession of sin ; for the consciousness of sin is a sentiment 
by no means foreign to their minds. They make offerings 
to the spirits to induce them to intercede with the deity, but 
no offerings are ever made to the great Wdorombwzike 
Himself, for man has nothing to offer that would be of the 
least value to Him. God is indeed for them an ever-present 
terror, and the thought of communion with Him has never 
entered into their minds. He is the Owner of the World, 
and it is for men to see that He is not offended. Of the 
many sins that bring down the wrath of God and of the 
spirits on the community the chief are widespread sexual 
offences and the neglect of sacrifice.’ 

The souls of the dead, as we have seen, are thought 
by the Konde to act as mediators or intercessors between 
Kiara (Kya/a) and mankind. Prayers and sacrifices are 
offered to them as well as to him, but the dead may 
not be buried in the groves which are dedicated to 
the worship of the god. One of these sacred groves, 
in which the deity is believed to dwell with his children, 
exists on the slope of the volcano, Mount Rungwe. Hither 
the people come with cattle and much beer to worship Kiara 
or Mbamba. They dance, and sing, and invoke the deity, 
saying, “ Mbamba, let our children thrive! May the cattle 
multiply! May our maize and sweet potatoes flourish ! 
Take pestilence away!” and so on. Then they fill their 
mouths with’leaves of a certain sort which they chew, and 
having mixed them with a draught of beer they spit or spray 
out the mixture on the trees of the grove; this form of 
offering is called “puffing at the God” After that, they 
slaughter cattle, feast on their flesh, and quaff the beer 
which they have brought with them to the holy place.” 

Another famous place where sacrifices are, or rather 
used to be, offered to Mbamba or Kiara is on the peninsula 
of Ikombe, at the north-eastern extremity of Lake Nyasa. 
Here a rock, called by the natives God’s Rock, juts out into 


1D. R. Mackenzie, Zhe Spirit- 2 F. Fiilleborn, Das deutsche Njassa- 
ridden Nonde, pp. 181 sg. und Ruwuma-Gebtet, Land und Leute, 
arg lo. 


Vv WORSAIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 191 


the lake. It is shaded by lofty trees, and a brook of clear 
water babbles close by. In this rock there is a grotto which 
the natives call the House of God. The entrance is over- 
grown with creeping plants, and the floor of the grotto is 
covered with several layers of earthen pots, which once 
contained offerings. A priest, who bore the title of Son 
of the Lake (Muakinjassa), used to be in charge of the 
sanctuary ; he had a wife and cattle, but both wife and cattle 
were deemed the property of the deity. In time of drought Prayersand 
the Konde chiefs used to meet at this rock beside the lake @o"°* 
shore to ‘pray for rain. A victim was slain and its flesh 
placed in the House of God. Then a chief, who acted as 
spokesman in the prayers, filled a gourd with water from the 
lake, took a mouthful of the water, and puffed it out on the 
ground. This he continued to do until he had emptied 
the gourd. Then he prayed, saying, “Mbamba! Kiara! 
Thou hast refused us rain, give us rain, that we die not. 
Save us from death by hunger. Thou art indeed our 
Father, we are thy children, Thou hast created us, why 
wouldst thou that we die? Give us maize, bananas, and 
beans. Thou hast given us legs to run, arms to work, and 
also cattle ; give us now rain, that we may reap the harvest.” 
But if the deity turned a deaf ear to these petitions, and the 
drought continued, the people repaired again to the grove 
and repeated their prayers, until Mbamba or Kiara was 
graciously pleased to hearken to them and to send the 
longed-for rain.’ 

Another sacred grotto of Kiara is similarly situated in a Another 
cliff which, rising in romantic beauty from the brink eee 
of the lake, has been christened by Europeans the Kiara, a 
Loreley Rock. But here also the worship of the native Pico! 
god appears to have been long neglected. A European who 
visited the holy spot some years ago had to cut his way to 
it through the tangled and matted forest with a knife. A 
native, who accompanied him to the forlorn sanctuary with 
fear and trembling, informed him that in time past this shrine 
had enjoyed a high reputation, not only among the Konde 
and the Wakissi; even the Wakinga came down from the 
mountains to sacrifice here beside the lake. The offerings 


1}. Fiilleborn, of, cz¢. p. 320. 


Story of the 
Origin of 
Death : 

the Two 
Messengers, 
the sheep 
and the 
dog. 


192 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


consisted of meal and white fowls, also of goats and cattle, 
but the colour of the cattle was indifferent. If a cow 
destined for sacrifice chanced to low, it was a sign that 
Kiara would not have it; so the anfmal was not slaughtered. 
Of the slain cattle a head and leg used to be laid in the 
grotto as offerings. The goats were taken a little way aside 
from the sanctuary and slaughtered at the foot of a cliff, 
under the shadow of ancient trees. Their flesh is said to 
have been wholly consumed by the worshippers. The white 
fowls were brought alive to the sanctuary and fed by the 
priest with millet.’ In contrast to the white fowls thus 
offered to Kiara were the black calves sacrificed to the 
dead. The Konde used to offer human sacrifices. As late 
as 1896 there were rumours of the sacrifice of a woman 
and child in connexion with a ceremony to procure rain ; 
but we are not told that the sacrifice was offered to Kiara. 
The mode of sacrifice was to cut the victim’s throat and 
sprinkle the blood about.’ 

Like many other African peoples, the Konde tell a story 
of the Origin of Death which conforms to the type of the 
Two Messengers; in this case the messengers are a sheep 
and adog. They say that of old. there was as yet no such 
thing as death, and men were divided in opinion as to 


whether they should ask God to grant them death or not. 


Those who thought death desirable sent a sheep to impress 
their view on the deity ; while those who preferred not to 
die despatched a dog to plead the cause of immortality with 
God. But the sheep, the advocate of death, arrived before 
the dog ; the deity gave judgment in his favour, and conse- 
quently men have been mortal ever since.2 A somewhat 
similar story of the Origin of Death is told in Calabar, 
on the opposite side of the continent, and in it also the 
messengers are a dog and a sheep. They say that for a 
long time after the creation of the world there was no death 
in it. At last, however, a man sickened and died. So the 
people sent a dog to God to ask him what they should do 
with the dead man. The dog stayed so long away that the 
people grew tired of waiting and sent off a sheep to God with 


1 F. Fiilleborn, of. -c??. p. 321. 3 F. Fiilleborn, of. cz¢. p. 331. 
2 F. Fiilleborn, of. cz#. pp. 322 sg. 


a ee 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 193 


the same question. [he sheep soon returned and reported 
that God said, “Let the dead man be buried”. So they 
buried him. Afterwards the dog returned also and reported 
that God said, “ Put warm ashes on the dead man’s belly, 
and he will rise again”. However, the people told the dog 
that he came too late; the dead man was already buried 
according to the instructions of the sheep. That is why men 
are buried when they die. But as for the dog he is driven 
from men and humiliated, because it is through his fault that 
we all die.’ 

The Wakulwe inhabit a district to the west of Lake 
Rukwa, in the south-western corner of Tanganyika Territory 
(German East Africa). Down to about a hundred and 
fifty years ago, according to native tradition, their country 
was uninhabited, the haunt of elephants, buffaloes, zebras, 
lions, leopards, and other wild beasts.” According to the 
testimony of a Catholic missionary, Father Hamberger, who 
lived among them for about eight years and knew their 
language, the Wakulwe believe in the existence of a good 
and righteous God, the Creator, who is an incorporeal spirit. 
They call him Nguluwi, but among some neighbouring tribes, 
including the Wabemba, Wamambwe, and Wafipa, his. name 
is Leza. On account of his goodness the Wakulwe often 
give him the title of Mother (Zama), though they by no 
means regard him as feminine. The souls of the dead 
(wazimu) are believed to dwell with him in a bright place 
and by their petitions to exercise great influence over him, 
though in themselves they are not endowed with any divine 
power. Among the souls of the dead the spirits of deceased 
chiefs bear a special name (szaleza) and are the most in- 
fluential intercessors with the deity.2 Their name (maleza) 
is the plural form of Leza, which, as we have seen, is the 
name of the Supreme Being in some neighbouring tribes ; 
yet we are told that no divine power is ascribed even to 
them.* 


1 «Calabar Stories,” Journal of the 2 A. Hamberger, “ Religidse Uber- 
African Society, No. 18 (January, — lieferungen und Gebrauche der Land- 
1906), p. 194. I have reported this schaft Mkulwe (Deutsch-Ostafrika) ”’, 
story elsewhere (Fo/k-lore in the Old  Anthropos, iv. (1909) p. 295. 
Testament, i. 63). See also above, 3 A, Hamberger, of. cit, p. 305. 
pp. 105 sg. 4 A. Hamberger, of. cit, p. 308. 


VOL. I O 


Belief 

of the 
Wakulwe 
in a good 
God and 
Creator 
called 
Nguluwi, 


Mwawa, 
an African 
Satan. 


Nguluwi 
the source 
of all good. 


Prayers to 
Nguluwi. 


Story ofa 
great flood, 


194 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


Another incorporeal spirit who plays a great part in the 
religion of the Wakulwe is called Mwawa. The people hate 
and fear him, though outwardly they honour him and obey 
his perverse commands, lest he should destroy them. His 
special function is to deceive people and to strike them blind 
or to “eat them up” by means of the smallpox. Hence 
he is often known as Mother Smallpox (Mama Nduwt), for 
the title Mother is given him to flatter him. In short, as 
Father Hamberger observes, Mwawa is no other than Satan 
in person, and like Satan he lives in the air.’ 

From God or Nguluwi, on the other hand, come all good 
things, such as children, rain, food, health, and luck in 
hunting, fishing, and undertakings of every sort. He will 
even help a man to destroy an enemy either by violence or 
by sorcery. But the blessings which he so liberally dis- 
penses he frequently bestows, not on his own initiative, but 


-at the prompting of the good spirits who dwell with him. 


Even Mwawa, in other words Satan, can appear before 
him in the office of intercessor.” 

Prayers are offered by the father of a family, either to 
Neguluwi directly, or to the souls of the worshipper’s dead 
forefathers with a request that they will intercede with 
Neuluwi for him.2 Thus when rain is wanted, the chief 
of the district sacrifices animals at the graves of his 
ancestors and begs them to implore rain from Neguluwi,. 
saying, for instance, “Thou Father Luiwa, guard me! All 
ye fathers of the land, guard me! Ask rain of Nguluwi 
for me! Guard me, guard us, us, your children, that we die 
not of famine”, and so on.‘ 

Some of the Wakulwe tell a story of Nguluwi which 
bears a close, not to say suspicious, resemblance to the 
Biblical narrative of the Great Flood. It runs thus: | 

Long ago the rivers came down in flood. God said to 
two men, “Go into the ship. Also take into it seeds of all 
sorts and all animals, one male and one female of each.” 
They did so. The flood rose high, it overtopped the moun- 
tains,’ the ship floated on-it. All animals and all men died. 
When the water dried up, the man in the ship said, “Let us 


1 A. Hamberger, of. c7t. p. 305. 3 A. Hamberger, of. c7¢. pp. 306 sg. 
2 A. Hamberger, of. czt. pp. 305 5g. 4 A. Hamberger, of. czt. p. 308. 


Vv WOM MIPIOE THR SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA |) 196 


see, perhaps the water is not yet dried up”. He sent out a 
dove. She returned to the ship. He waited, he sent out a 
hawk which did not return, because the water was dried up. 
The men went forth from the ship, they let out all the 
animals and all the seeds. This legend is reported by 
Father Hamberger, who tells us that it is kiiown to few of 
the people. - He had it from two men, who assured him 
that it was an ancient tradition of the country and not 
borrowed from foreigners.! 

Like other African tribes, the Wakulwe also tell of an Story like 
attempt which men of old made to scale the heaven. Their t°! as 
wish was to reach the moon, and for this purpose they set one Babel. 
tree on the top of another, till the structure attained a great 
height. Then it fell down and killed them. Other men 
repeated the attempt with the same result, after which the 
survivors desisted from the rash undertaking.” The story 
savours of the Tower of Babel, but not more so than some 
other African tales of the same type.” 

Lastly, the Wakulwe explain the origin of human Story of the 
mortality by a story which is clearly not copied directly ee ee 
from the Mosaic record. According to them the fatal Nguluvi, 

: the sheep 

event happened thus. One day men said, “ Let us ask the ana the 
sheep and the dog”. They gave the sheep a piece of meat, 48: 
they gave the dog a bone. An old woman, inspired by 
Mwawa (that is, by Satan), said to them, “ Ye err. Give the 
dog the meat.” The men agreed, they did just the contrary 
of what they had done at first, they gave the dog the meat, 
they gave the sheep the bone. They said, “The one that 
swallows it and speaks first, his words shall have weight”. 
The dog made haste, bolted the meat, barked, “ Bow wow!” 
and: said, “We die, we perish”. Ihe sheep nibbled at the 
bone, but could not bolt it down. At last she spoke and 
said, “Ba! ba! We die but we come back,” meaning that 
Wenrrisestrom the idead.> -che men) said,“ Alas |) “The. dog 
was before you.” They beat the dog and drove it away.* 

On this story Father Hamberger remarks that it is 
universally known among the natives and is often told by 


1A. Hamberger, of. ct. p. 304. 2 A. Hamberger, of, cz. p. 304. 
I have reported this story elsewhere 3 For examples see above, pp. 173, 
(Folk-lore in the Old Testament, i. 174, and below, p. 201. 
332). 4 A, Hamberger, of. czt. p. 300. 


Mgr. 
Lechaptois 
on Ngulwi 
(Nguluwi), 
the 
Supreme 
Being of the 
Wakulwe. 


196 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


them in a shorter form. Further he tells us that, in accord- 
ance with the native habit of leaving unsaid much that they 
regard as too obvious to require mention, we must under- 
Stand it to have been the will of Nguluwi, that is of God, 
that men should give the meat to the sheep, as indeed they 
did in the first instance, instead of to the dog. If only they 
had done so, it is plain that the sheep would have swallowed 
the meat before the dog could have masticated the bone, 
and that, having bolted it, the sheep would have delivered 
the glad tidings of resurrection before the dog could have 
announced his doom of death. Hence we should all have 
been immortal, or, what comes to much the same thing, we 
should all have risen from the dead down to this day. 
Thus the benevolent intention of the deity towards his 
creatures is again triumphantly vindicated. It was not his 
fault that men gave the meat to the dog instead of to the 
sheep. Understood in this way, the story is clearly nothing 
but a variation on the story of the Two Messengers, which 
so many African tribes tell to explain the origin of human 
mortality. In that widespread tradition the purpose of 
the Creator to bestow immortality on mankind is always 
frustrated by the mistake or misconduct of the messenger 
who is charged with the good news of life eternal. In the 
Konde and Calabar versions of the tale cited above the 
two messengers are, as in the Wakulwe version, a dog and 
a sheep; but in them, the parts of the messengers are 
inverted, the dog being the herald of resurrection, while 
the sheep announces the sentence of death irretrievable.’ 
Father Hamberger’s account of Nguluwi, the Supreme 
Being of the Wakulwe, is confirmed by the testimony of 
a French Catholic Missionary, Monseigneur Lechaptois, who 
lived and worked among the tribes of the south-western 
corner of Tanganyika Territory (German East Africa). He 
tells us that in Mkulwe, that is, the country of the Wakulwe, 
the Creator and Supreme Being is known as Negulwi 
(Vgoulouz) He is sovereignly good and has for his 
ministers Katavi and Mwawa, two incorporeal spirits 
who fly in the air. The first of them (Katavi) appears 
to preside over the rewards, and the second (Mwawa) 
1 See above, pp. 192 sg. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 197 


over the punishments respectively bestowed or inflicted 
on souls in the other world.’ In this account Mwawa 
is clearly identical with the spirit of the same name 
whom Father Hamberger equates with Satan; and with 
regard to Katavi, we must conclude that he is no other 
than Katai, who, according to Father Hamberger, is merely 
Mwawa himself under another name.” 

Further, Monseigneur Lechaptois informs us that in Various 
Nyasaland, on the banks of Lake Tanganyika, and inj" fe 
Urungu, which is the country at the south-western corner of Supreme 
Lake Tanganyika, the name for the Supreme Being is Leza. re a 
He it is who has made all things, and who gives life to the Katema 
child in its mother’s womb. It is to him that men go ae 
when they die. In Ugala he receives the same name as the and Ilanzi. 
sun, namely Katema. The Wagala say that he pays little 
heed to men, but that he kills those at whom he is 
angry.” In Rukwa and Ufipa (the land of the Wafipa) the 
usual name of the Supreme God is Leza; but according to 
the tradition of the natives this name was introduced among 
them by the Warungu. The true name of the Sovereign 
Creator in the native language is said to be Ilanzi, which 
means the sun. In the morning when they woke, people 
used to say, “Ilanzi has kept me during the night”; and 
when some one died, they said, “Ilanzi has taken him 
away ”. 

But among all these tribes, situated at or near the The 
southern end of Lake Tanganyika, whether he be called Leza, erry. 
or Ilanzi, or Nguluwi, or Katema, this Supreme God is said in the sky 
to enter very little into the everyday life of the people. He se taper) 
inhabits the sky, where he is supremely happy ; and it seems himself 
that he cannot stoop so low as to interest himself in the pees a 
mriltifarious needs of his. creatures. “Hence they in their The lower 
turn deem it useless to pay him any particular homage eee 
or to address any prayers to him. But below this great uate 
deity they admit the existence of a multitude of inferior including 


the souls 
1 Mgr. Lechaptois, Aux Rives du mission of Mkulwe (St. Boniface). of thedead, 
Tanganika (Algiers, 1913), p. 165. 2 A. Hamberger, of. czt. p. 305. one a 
Both Monseigneur Lechaptois and 3 Mgr. Lechaptois, Aux rives du i a 
Father Hamberger belong to the Order Tanganika, p. 165. eral 
of the White Fathers. Father Ham- 4 Mgr. Lechaptois, Aux rives du 


berger is, or was, head of the Catholic Zanganzka, pp. 165 sq. 


Rich 
mythology 
of these 
tribes, 


198 WORSHTIP\OL, DAE ISIN APARLCA CHAP. 


divinities, who rule the world, some of them dispensing all 
the comforts and blessings, others inflicting all the calamities 
and woes that affect for good or evil the life of man. It is 
to these lower divinities, the dread of whom is deeply 
implanted in the native mind, that all the offerings and 
prayers of the people are addressed. The name for these 
lesser deities varies with the dialect of the tribe; in one 
they are called mzz¢mu, in another mzyao or mtgabo, in 
another amalesa. This last name, which is current especially 
among the Warungu and Wafipa, would literally mean 
“Sons of Leza”; but the natives use the terms father and 
son in too wide and loose a sense to allow us to draw any 
precise conclusions from the name amaleza.2 Whatever be 
the exact essence of these minor deities, they seem to be all 
subject to the infirmities of human nature. Like men they 
are apt to be weary and to suffer from hunger and thirst. 
Hence people erect little huts where the spirits may rest 
from the fatigue of scouring the air, and where they may 
refresh themselves with the victuals which are deposited in 
the tiny huts for their consumption. The spirits of the 
human dead also roam about the villages where they dwelt 
in life, and they still take a kindly interest in the affairs of 
their living kinsfolk. Hence for them, too, little shelters 
are put up near their old homes, and there the survivors 
scatter flour, pour beer, or slaughter an animal in sacrifice, 
while they pray to the souls of their fathers, their mothers, 
or their brothers to behold their sufferings and heal their 
diseases. Indeed, we are told that these people possess 
a mythology as rich as that of Greece in antiquity. 
The popular imagination has given itself full play in 
peopling the forests, the rocks, the cascades, the glens, 
the rivers, and above all the shores of the lake with 
innumerable spirits. There is hardly a reef, hardly a 
cape in Lake Tanganyika which has not its god dreaded by 


1 Mer. Lechaptois, Aux r7ves du ingly regards as spirits of nature. But 


Tanganika, p. 166. : no doubt the mzzzzmz are identical with 
2 Mer. Lechaptois, Aux rives du the waztmu, which Father Hamberger 
Tanganika, p. 167. expressly identifies with the souls of 


8 Mgr. Lechaptois, Aux rives du the dead (Anthrofos, iv. 305); and 
Tanganika, p. 168. Thus the author | the same word, with dialectical differ- 
appears to distinguish the souls of the ences, occurs in the sense of ‘* souls 
dead from the zz?mu, which he seem- of the dead” in many Bantu languages. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 199 


the mariner. Such a cape, for example, is Kaboga, where 
the hollow rocks at its base receive the breaking waves and 
give out their muffled roar, like a peal of thunder, heard 
far off for miles. To the ear of the native this mysterious 
sound is the voice of the spirit calling for a sacrifice or 
threatening with vengearfce the bold mortal who should 
dare to refuse his demand." Above all the hubbub and 
bustle of life on earth, the Supreme Being, by whatever 
name he is called, is supposed to sit in majestic calm, 
hardly deigning to disturb the bliss of heaven by a moment’s 
thought bestowed on the petty affairs of his puny creature 
man. 

Two of these tribes, the Wafipa and the Wabende, who Story of the 

inhabit the country on the south-eastern shore of Lake ses. 
Tanganyika, tell a story which, like many other African of the im- 
tales, associates the Supreme Being with the origin Of a onsue 
human mortality. They say that Leza, the high God, came 
_down to earth, and, addressing all living creatures, he said, 
“Who among you wishes not to die?” Unfortunately, men 
and animals were asleep. The serpent alone was awake 
and answered “I” to the question of the deity. That ts 
why man dies like all the animals. The serpent alone does 
not die of itself. To die, it must be killed. Every year, in 
order to renew its youth and vigour, it has only to change its 
skin.” Almost identical stories to explain human mortality 
are told by the Dusuns of British North Borneo and the 
Todjo-Toradjas of Central Celebes.® 

To the east of these tribes, but still in the southern The 
portion of Tanganyika Territory (German East Africa), the (anche 


angan- 


Wahehe inhabit a mountainons and barren region intersected yika 

; Territor 
by valleys down which rush torrents of clear cold water. paieve in a 
Despite its situation within the tropics the country, swept Supreme 


re : ° : Being 
by keen biting winds, enjoys a cool or even cold climate. catied 


The rich grass which carpets the banks of the rivers affords Nsuruhi, 
but they do 


excellent pasture for cattle; and accordingly the Wahehe not pray or 
sacrifice to 

1 Mgr. Lechaptois, Aux rives du 1. 66. For the Dusun version of the him, re- 
Tangantka, pp. 170, 172. story, add to the references Ivor H. N. S¢F¥!ng all 


cs SUA ah heir 
‘ é Evans, Stedzes 212 Religion, Folk-lore ; ; 
2 - 4 *997) ’ « , ? - : 
qT an ee ENG Reh and Custom tn LBrittsh North Borneo aes a 
Bet es vig)” and the Malay Peninsula (Cambridge, of thedead. 


3 See Folk-lore in the Old Testament, 1923), pp. 47, 49. 


200 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


are mainly a pastoral people, who put all their pride and 
ambition in the maintenance and multiplication of their 
herds.'. Like the other tribes whom we have surveyed, the 
Wahehe believe in a Supreme Being, a Creator whom they 
call Nguruhi. The name appears to be only another form of 
Nguluwi, by which the Wakulwe designate the same mighty 
being.” The Wahehe believe that he sends rain and sunshine, 
wind and storm, thunder and lightning, in short, that he 
is the author of all the great atmospheric phenomena of 
nature. In his hand, too, are the destinies of mankind ; he 
causes them to be born and to die, to be well or to be sick, 
to be rich or to be poor; at his good pleasure he blesses 
them with abundant harvests or smites them with dearth 
and famine. He is a spirit, invisible, and incapable of 
being represented in art; accordingly, no image of him 
exists or has ever existed. He created the world, but as 
to when or how he did so, the people have no definite idea. 
They conceive of him as all-powerful, but yet as maintain- 
ing only a general control over the world and human 
destiny, while the spirits of the dead (masoka) exert a 
permanent and very considerable influence on the course of 
all particular events. It is true that Nguruhi is lord also 
over the spirits of the dead, but his relation to them is a 
subject on which the natives have but little reflected. To 
this Supreme Being they neither pray nor sacrifice ; they do 
not strive to enter into any form of communion with him ; 
substantially he stands quite aloof from their religious life, 
and in practice he serves only as the standing explanation 
of every thing and every event which is otherwise inexplic- 
able. All the devotion, all the worship of the people is 
directed to the spirits of the dead, who are the real objects 
of the popular religion.® 

The The Pare mountains form a range running southward 

Wapare or from Mount Kilimanjaro, near the eastern boundary of 


Wasu 
believe ina Tanganyika Territory (German East Africa). The greater 


pan part of the mountains is inhabited by a tribe called the 

ais - 1 E. Nigmann, Die Wahehe (Berlin, somewhere between the valleys of the 

Seat OOS), p- 3. The writer omits to Ruaha and the Rufiji or Alanga Rivers. 
describe the situation of Uhehe, the 2 See above, p. 193. 


country of the Wahehe, but from the 3 E. Nigmann, Die Wahehe, pp. 
sketch map we gather that it lies 22 sg. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 201 | 


Wapare or Wasu. Among them have been recorded some 
ancient and half-forgotten legends of a good God, the Creator 

of the world, whom they call Kyumbi. “They say that he 
gave their forefathers cattle, in order that they might clothe 
themselves in the hides, for he pitied their nakedness. He 
gave them also maize and the fruits of the field, and taught 
them to till the ground, for they suffered from hunger. 
God was near, men lived in communion with him. But 
Kiriamagi, the Eater of Eggs, the Deceiver, the Serpent, 
tempted men to eat eggs, which Kyumbi had forbidden 
them to do. And God punished them with a great famine, 

so that they began to eat beetles in order to save their lives. 

All mankind died, except two, a young man and a young 
woman. From them all the generations of the earth are 
descended. Now God was still near to men. But when men Story like 
multiplied they grew froward, and they spake among them- eae oS 
selves, saying, “ Come, let us build a tower, whose top shal] Babel. 
reach to the upper land, in order that we may creep up it 
-and wage war on’Him that is above in His own country ”. 

But Kyumbi looked down on them, as a man looks down 

on a heap of ants, and he said, “What are these little 
pigmies down below there?” Then the earth quaked, and 

the tower broke in two, and buried the builders under the 
ruins. But Kyumbi moved the upper land far away, and 
ever since he has not been near men, but far, far away. 
And since that day men have sought God, and wished to 
draw him down to them, Bus they site not; for Kyumbe 
hearkened to them no more.’ 

And men beheld the fiery orb which rises in the east Kyumbi is 
from the underworld and passes by to vanish again in the tenes 
west, and: to go down into the realm of shadows; and they that is, the 
made the fiery orb their god, and from that time they ea 
named their god Ithuwa, that is to say, the Sun. Thought- 
ful people among the Wapare still speak of a God who is 
separate from the sun, and who lives on or in the sun and 
created it, as he created everything else. But for most folk 
‘the three names Kyumbi, Ithuwa, and Mrungu are all one; 
all three signify God. If you ask them where Kyumbi, or 


1 J. J. Dannholz, Jm Banne des Heidentums bet.den Wasu in Deutsch- 
Geisterglaube, Ztige des animistischen  Ostafrika (Leipzig, 1916), p. 12. 


Morning 
prayer to 
the Sun. 


The Sky- 
god 
Kyumbi 
identified 
or confused 
with the 
Sun. 


202 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


Ithuwa, or Mrungu is, they point to the sun. Ithuwa, the 
Sun, is the male god, and he begat mankind ; Mweji, the 
Moon, is the female deity, and she bore mankind. The 
stars are the divining pebbles which the Moon handles when 
she consults the oracle about the birth of children. Men 
pray to Ithuwa for children and increase of cattle; and 
apart from these blessings they pray to him chiefly to guard 
them against the foe who walks in darkness and dabbles in 
magic. Early in the morning the father of the family takes 
a mouthful of beer and spits it out twice towards the rising 
sun, and twice he prays, saying, “O Ithuwa, thou chief, thou 
Mrungu, thou who didst create men, and cattle, and trees, 
and grass, thou who passest by overhead, look upon him 
who curses me! When thou breakest forth in the morning, 
may he see thee; but when thou goest down at evening, may 
he see thee no more! But if I have sinned against him, 
may I die before thou dost decline!” And when a man is 
dying, he takes the hand of his son, spits into it and says: 
“My son, I die. But do thou dwell below the water-brook 
that thou mayest ever be able to water thy field. May 
Ithuwa give thee the stréngth and fatness of the field. May 

He give thee cattle and children, a son and a daughter!” * 
Thus it would appear that the Wapare have some 
traditions or reminiscences of an ancient Sky-god named 
Kyumbi, who at a later time has been identified or confused 
by them with the sun. The foregoing account of this 
religious evolution or degeneration is drawn from the work 
of a German missionary who has lived among the Wapare. 
It is confirmed by the testimony of another German 
missionary, who, on questioning a very old man as to what 
the Wapare knew about God, received the following answer: 
‘“ Kiumbe is the Creator who created everything. We know 
nothing more about him. He does not trouble himself 
about us, and we do not trouble ourselves about him. But 
the Sun is great, and the Moon is great; the Moon gives 
birth to the children of men.” Another native said, “ As 
Creator, Kiumbe is known to us all”. But when one of the 
1 J. J. Dannholz, Jw Banne der but says that thes is to be pronounced 


Getsterglaube, pp. 13 sg. The author like the English 72. 
spells the name of the Sun-god Izuwa, 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 203 


Wapare is asked to give fuller information on the deity, he 

has nothing more to say, and falls back on the Sun and 

Moon as more familiar and, above ail, visible beings.’ The Prayers to 
Same missionary describes more fully the prayer offered by a5 ve 
those people to the Sun for the destruction of an enemy. destruction 
He tells us that when a chief is threatened with an unjust ae ae 
war by an enemy, he prepares some honey beer in a small for the 
pot, and mounts with it to the roof of his hut, where he sets Aaeae 
down the pot and offers a libation to the Creator (K7zumde), 

to the Firmament (£2/unge), and to the Sun and Moon, spitting 

twice towards the sunrise and twice towards the sunset. 

He prays at the same time that his foe may see the rising, 

but not the setting of the orb of day. This prayer or incanta- 

tion he repeats on four successive days, and on the day of 

battle he gives his enemy notice of it by proclamation. 

And a native doctor, after he has treated his patient, will 

go out of the house with his medicine bottle, spit towards 

the east and the west, and cry to the Sun, “ Take our sick- 

nesses to thyself, and go with them whither thou goest!”? 


On the extreme northern edge of Tanganyika Territory Mount 
(German East Africa), close to the boundary of Kenya a 
Colony, stands Mount Kilimanjaro, a huge extinct volcano the African 
more than nineteen thousand feet high. For a perpendicular O¥™?"* 
height of some five thousand feet its summit is sheathed 
in a mantle of eternal ice and snow. Rising in isolated 
majesty from the plain, the great mountain offers a most 
impressive spectacle, whether, viewed from a distance of 
over a hundred miles, its snowy dome appears like a 
dazzling white cloud against the blue African sky, or 
whether the traveller gazes up at its soaring mass from the 
hot tropical lowlands at its foot. The sides of the mountain 
are riven into ridges by deep ravines carved by torrents, 
their precipitous banks draped with tree ferns and wild 
bananas; waterfalls plunge with a thundrous roar down 
sheer cliffs or trickle over rocky inclines into clear crystal 
pools set in a riot of jungle growth ; on the lower slopes the 


1 E. Kotz, 7m Banne der Furcht, dated 1922), p. 192. 
Sitten und Gebrauche der Wapare 2 E. Kotz, /m Banne der Furcht, 
(Hamburg, etc.: N.D. Introduction p. 193. 


204 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN-AFRICA CHAP. 


ridges are clad in the verdurous mantle of unbroken banana 
groves, among which nestle the huts of the mountain 
dwellers ; higher up the luxuriant groves give place to virgin 
forest, the haunt of elephants and leopards, where the 
gnarled tree-trunks are interwoven by trailing vines and 
decked with ferns, orchids, and moss, where the dense foliage 
overhead is wet with the morning mist, and under foot the 
ground is carpeted with delicate wild flowers, and honey- 
combed with springs that well forth at every step. Here 
monkeys gambol among the trees, squirrels leap from 
bough to bough, the air is full of the ceaseless hum of 
insects, and butterflies of gorgeous hues flit through the 
dappled sunshine and shade of the forest. Higher up the 
woods are replaced by open grass lands, and higher still 
succeed moors of heather, strewn with boulders. Here the 
trees have disappeared, and with them have gone most of 
the signs and sounds of abounding animal life which relieved 
the gloom of the forest. Silence and solitude now reign, 
broken occasionally by the croak of a raven on a rock, or by 
the sight of a duiker scampering through the heather, or of 
a hawk poised on level pinions overhead. Higher still a 
desert of sand, shingle, and rock stretches up to the eternal 
snows and glaciers of the summit. The very few Europeans 
who have scaled Mount Kibo, the loftier of the two peaks 
of Kilimanjaro, have looked down with wonder on an 
immense crater, over a mile wide and many hundreds of 
feet deep, its floor covered with vast sheets and battle- 
ments of ice. For though lava has flowed over the rim of 
the crater and run down the flanks of the mountain, leaving 
great petrified ridges which look like giant girders support- 
ing the dome of ice, yet at the present day the volcano dis- 
plays no sign of outward activity; only the ominous tremors 
that often shake the ground give warning of the tremendous 
fires that slumber beneath the seemingly calm and peaceful 
surface. In its combination of loftiness with grandeur and 
beauty of scenery, if not in the solemn religious impression 
which it has made on the minds of its people, Kilimanjaro 
deserves to rank as the Olympus of Africa.’ 


1 Hon. Charles Dundas, At@imanjaro 27, 32 sg., 38. For another account 
and its People (London, 1924), pp. 11- of two partial ascents of Kilimanjaro, 


V WORSHIP OF THE SRY IN EASTERN: APRICA: 205 


The native inhabitants of Kilimanjaro occupy the slopes The 
from a height of about four to six or seven thousand feet. Wachss 
They belong to the Bantu family, but they are by no means Kili- 
homogeneous in blood, being the descendants of different °°” 
tribes who have been driven up the mountain from the 
plains by the pressure of enemies. They have no common 
name for themselves, but by Europeans they are called 
Wachagga or Chagga, and this name has now been practi- 
cally adopted by the people themselves. They have evolved 
a more or less common language, with dialects which are 
very distinct from each other. Similarly their customs are 
for the most part uniform, though they vary in detail. The 
differences of dialect, and to a certain extent of custom are 
favoured by the configuration of their country; for the 
various communities inhabit separate ridges which are 
sharply divided from each other by the deep river valleys 
of the mountain. Each community styles itself the people 
of this or that ridge, as for instance the Wamashe, the 
~“Wamoshi, and so forth. They are all devoted exclusively 
to agriculture, except in one district where pasture land 


favours the breeding of cattle.’ 


Before the arrival of the 


Wachagga the mountain is said to have been inhabited by 
a dwarf people called the Wakonyingo or Wadarimba.” 
The Wachagga recognize the existence of a great Sky- 


god whom they call Ruwa.? 


In its absolute form the word 


Ruwa denotes the sun only, but in its locative form it 


designates the sky.’ 


see Charles New, Life, Wanderings, and 
Labours in Eastern Africa (London, 
1873), pp. 400 sgg.,419s5¢g. Mr. New’s 
description of the scenery on the ascent 
tallies closely with that of Mr. Dundas. 
On his second ascent, with niuch diffi- 
culty, he just reached the level of the 
snow. Of the landscape on the lower 
slope he says (p. 402): ‘‘ Here are 
fairy woods and bowers, sunny hills 
and shady dells, murmuring brooks, 
bridges, viaducts, and, in fact, the 
whole collection of sylvan beauties and 
delights ; enough to elicit poetry from 
the most prosaic of mortals ”. 

1 Ch. Dundas, Av/¢manjaro and its 
People, pp. 32, 41. 

? Ch. Dundas, Av/émanjaro and its 


Some confusion seems to reign in the 


People, pp. 37, 41, 50 5g. 

3 Bruno Gutmann, Dichten und 
Denken der Dschagganeger (Leipzig, 
TOOON,, Post 2 7s0Gers ea) au ec 1 e 
Religion der Landschaft Moschi am 
Kilimandjaro”, Archiv fiir Religions- 
wessenschaft, xiv. (1911) pp. 192 sgq¢.; 
Ch. Dundas, Avlimanjaro and its 
People, pp. 107 sgg. The name is 
given as Ruzwa by Messrs. Raum and 
Dundas, as /rwva by Mr. Gutmann. 
But in a later essay Mr. Gutmann 
adopted the form Azzwa. See his essay, 
‘‘Teldbausitten und Wachstumsbrauche 
der Wadschagga,” Zettschrift fur Eth- 
nologie, liv. (1913) p. 509. Hence I have 
adopted the form Awwa throughout. 

4 J. Raum, of. ctt. p. 193. 


The great 
Sky-god of 
the 
Wachagga 
is named 
Ruwa, a 
word which 
may denote 
either the 
sky or the 
sun. 


But the 
primary 
root of the 
deity seems 
to be the 
sky rather 
than the 
sun, 


Native 
account of 
the celestial 
nature of 
Ruwa. 


206 WORSATP OF LHE SK Y¥ IN-AERICA CHAP. 


language, if not in the minds, of the Wachagga as to the 
distinction between RKuwa as a god, as the sun, and as 
the sky. In the same breath they will speak of him asa 
divine being, the Creator of men, and as the physical sun 
which rises, sets, and shines. But this confusion, though it 
may puzzle the European, presents no difficulty to the 
African. The conception of the external world as purely 
physical is foreign to him; the boundary of the supernatural 
and mysterious, if he admits a boundary of it at all, is close 
at hand for him, and he passes it readily and without mis- 
giving; to him it is perfectly natural to invest with per- 
sonality and to treat as powerful spiritual beings those 
objects of the external world which affect him deeply. His. 
worship of Ruwa is founded on a simple personification 
either of the orb of the sun or of the dome of heaven.’ 
Which of the two, the sun or the sky, furnished the 
starting-point of the conception of the great god seems 
doubtful. One of our best authorities on the Wachagga, 
the German missionary, Bruno Gutmann, appears to hold 
that the primary root of the deity is the sky rather than 
the sun. He tells us that the Wachagga energetically deny 
that Ruwa dwells in the sun or above the blue vault of 
heaven; his place is between the sky and the earth; they 
name the whole sky Ruwa, and say that it is a god who 
embraces, as it were, the whole world of man. But the 
actual vault or firmament, which they believe to be of stone, 
they call by a different name (nxgima). Again, the god 
Ruwa cannot be identical with the physical sun, because at 
night the sun sets in the west and passes under the earth to 
his place of rising in the east; whereas Ruwa is conceived 
of as brooding by night as well as by day over our human 
world. From all this Mr. Gutmann infers that in deifying 
Ruwa the Wachagga thought originally, not of the glowing 
orb of day, but of the whole broad heaven. “ The worship 
of the sky”, he says, “was the starting-point of their idea of 
God”. 

This conclusion as to the celestial rather than the solar 
origin of the god Ruwa is confirmed by the opinion of an 


1 J. Raum, of. ctt. p. 193. 
2 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken der Dschagganeger, pp. 178 sq. 


Vv WORST OLeL HE Sih LIN EB ASLERINVAL RIGA  ~207 


intelligent native, who reported the views of his people as 
follows: 

“Tt appears that in speaking of Ruwa they think, it is 
true, of the sun, but, on the whole, more of the sky. If they 
believed that Ruwa was the sun, then a man who prayed to 
Ruwa at night would look downward, because at night the 
sun is believed to be below the earth. At evening also he 
would turn towards the west where the sun goes down. But 
people do not so, not by any means. The reason why they 
think of the sun is this: they know that the sun is some- 
thing very big and wonderfully shiny. It can also walk 
day and night without stopping for rest and refreshment. 
But nobody can say why it keeps walking about, whether it 
be to keep awake or for any other reason. They believe 
also that in form it is like a man, and that it talks like a 
man and eats grass. It, or rather he, has also made a farm- 
steading for himself; and when he is in the zenith he has 
reached his steading. The moon is the wife of Ruwa, and 
the stars are his cattle. But whether he slaughters them is 
more than anybody knows.”? 

With this description of the Sun as a being of the 
graminivorous order, we may compare the vision which an 
old Chagga woman professed to have had of Ruwa himself. 
Asked to describe the deity, she said that he was as large as 
a cow, and that his tail was speckled red and white.” 

How little the Wachagega identify the physical sun with 
Ruwa appears from their belief that, when the sun rises in 
the morning, it is so tiny that it would be pecked to pieces 
by the birds, if certain sleepless guardians were not stationed 
far in the east, at the end of the world, to scare away the 
flocks of fowls that would otherwise swallow the sun and 
leave the world in darkness.? 

Ruwa is not conceived of as the Creator of the universe. 
If a Chagga man be asked who made the sun and the earth, 
he will answer that they have always existed, but of the stars 
he will sometimes say that they are Ruwa’s children.* On 
the other hand Ruwa is said to have created the first human 


1 J. Raum, of. cit. pp. 197, 200. 3B. Gutmann, Zc, 
2 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken 4 Ch. Dundas, A7/imanjaro and its 
der Dschagganeger, p. 178. People, p. 107. 


Comipari- 
son of 
Ruwa toa 
cow. 


The birds 
that peck 
atthe rising 
sun. 


Ruwa the 
Creator of 
man but 
not of the 
universe, 


208 WORSHIP’-OF THE SKY IN -AFPRICA CHAP, 


pair; among the various verbs used to express this creation 
one (zgumba) is otherwise only used to express the moulding 
of clay by a potter. To this day men come into being by 
the will of Ruwa. He it is who fashions the child in its 
mother’s womb. A childless man will say sadly, “ Ruwa 
has overlooked me”. A cripple is under the special pro- 
tection of Ruwa, and none may mock or illtreat him, 
because they say that it was Ruwa who made him so.’ 


Moral As a personal deity, Ruwa is believed to be kind and 

ear ee merciful, and these amiable features of his character are 
illustrated by many stories told about him. For example, 
we hear of a poor man who set out to seek Ruwa. He 
wandered on and on eastward, till he came to a meadow - 
where a great herd of cattle was browsing. Some of the 
kine took a path that led downward, but others went 
upward, and the poor man followed them and came to 
Ruwa. And Ruwa received him kindly, inquired into his 
distress, and granted his request, saying, “ That which thou 
wishest for thou shalt find at home”.? 

Ruwa the More than that, Ruwa is regarded in some sense as the 

guardian of : ; 

the moral guardian of the moral law. On the omnipotence and 


law. goodness of Ruwa a Chagga man expressed himself as 
follows : 

“Ruwa has power to do all things. Ruwa does not 
change: as Ruwa was of old, so he is now. Nor does he 
lie ; as he says so will he do. Ifa man does evil, though it 
be at night, Ruwa sees him. If the chief and his warriors 
surround a man, they cannot kill him if Ruwa does not 
permit it. When a man sickens and goes to the diviner 
and slaughters many goats and oxen for sacrifice, he will 
not be cured if Ruwa does not wish it. But Ruwa assists 
such and such a spirit to cure him. The spirit is the deputy 
of Ruwa who sends it to do his work, to cast sickness on 


1 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken 
dtr Dschagganeger, p. 1823; compare 
J.° Raum; ‘op. sczt. p. 195. Another 
verb (¢¢taza) applied to the creation of 
man also expresses the work of a smith 
(B. Gutmann, /.c.). On the other hand 
Mr. Dundas tells us that ‘* Ruwa was 
not really the Creator of Mankind, he 
merely liberated the first human beings 


from some mysterious vessel by burst- 
ing it. On this account he is known 
as Ruwa mopara wandu, God who 
burst (out) men” (Azd:manjaro and tts 
People, p. 108). 


2 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken 
der Dschagganeger, p. 180; compare 
Ch. Dundas, of, czt. p. 107. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 209 


people, to give them children, to bring famine, to mock 
bad men, to demand cattle, goats, and sheep, and to take 
them to Ruwa, and to bring small-pox and war into the 
country, to kill such and such a one by sickness and to kill 
all those whom Ruwa wants. 

“And the Wachagga teach their children thus: If a what 

child is sent by its parents, and if that child refuses, or if a Pach 
child quarrels with the parents and strikes them, or if it children 
does evil, stealing so that people seize the property of the 3°" 
parents, such a child is rejected by Ruwa and will die before 
he marries. And a robber who steals much and kills 
people, such a man cannot hide himself; there will come a 
day when Ruwa will place him in the hands of the judge 
who will punish him. A man who commits treason, who 
invites enemies to attack his country, such a man is rejected 
by Ruwa and will die with all his clan ; Ruwa will cut them 
down in their land. Ruwa cares for the poor, he cares for 
the orphans. If a man does good, if he does not intrigue 
against any one, if he does not steal but eats of his own 
hand, if he honours and cares for his elders, Ruwa will 
rejoice and give the blessing of cattle and goats and children. 
Now if you see a hut which has many sorrows, there evil 
has been done by the owner and his forebears, and now 
Ruwa has sent a spirit of this family to bring distress among 
them. S06, my child, fear evil, do well, and Ruwa_ will 
rejoice and he will send you great blessing. 

“ And the elders thus teach their children at the hour of 
noon, and those who are taught point to the sky with one 
finger and spit thrice.” * 

Yet withal the worship of Ruwa plays a very small part The wor- 
in the religion of the Wachagga; as in so many other Bantu aaa! 
tribes, the worship of the Supreme Being is cast into the castinto the 
background and almost completely overshadowed by the eee 
worship of the dead: the cult of ancestral spirits is the rea] ancestral 
religion of the Wachagga. Indeed the figure of Ruwa seems pun 
at times almost to fade away into a dim, a shadowy ab- 
straction, destitute of all significance for the practical life of 
the people. It is not only that he is thought of as so far 
away, so foreign, so aloof from mere humanity, while the 

1 Ch. Dundas, Azdzmanjaro and its People, pp. 121-123. 

VOL. I i 


Why the 

Wachagga 
honour the 
dead more 
than Ruwa., 


Sacrifices 
and prayers 
offered to 
Ruwa only 
in the 
second 
place. 


210 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


spirits of the dead are so near and so familiar; it is also 
that he is so good and so kind that he never sends trouble 
or distress, and therefore men have no need to fear and 
propitiate him; whereas among the spirits of the dead there 
are many that persecute and torment poor mortals; hence 
the Wachagga are compelled to sacrifice continually to these 
powerful and dangerous beings, to court their favour or 
appease their wrath.’ 

The same Chagga man who testified to the goodness 
and overruling providence of Kuwa went on further to 
explain why it is that nevertheless the Wachagga fear and 
honour the spirits of the dead more than him. He said: 

“Tf you ask them why they fear and obey the spirits 
more than they do Ruwa, they will answer thus: ‘ When the 
Chief sends to demand something that is his due, and on 
that day you have naught to give, whom will you try to 
appease, the Chief or his messenger that he may speak well 
of you to the Chief and the Chief may have mercy on you? 
And if you give bad words to the spirit who is sent to you, 
or refuse him that which the diviner has counselled you to 
give (that is, to sacrifice), that spirit will go to Ruwa and 
accuse you, and Ruwa will be angered and will send another 
spirit, a foreign spirit who is not of your ancestry, to afflict 
you greatly and to kill you. For this reason we honour the 
spirits more. Thus the old men speak concerning God and 
the spirits.” > 

As a general rule, sacrifices are only offered to Ruwa 
when the prayers and sacrifices offered to the spirits have 
proved in vain. For example, if a man Is sick, and offerings 
have been made to the spirits for many days to ensure 
his recovery, but without result, the people may say, “ All 
this is useless. We will go no more to the diviner. The 
next goat that we slaughter shall be offered to Ruwa.” So 
they fetch a goat when the sun is in the zenith. They bring 
it into the courtyard, and hold it with their hands, and spit 
on its head and say, “Here is the goat, Ruwa, my Chief. 
Thou alone knowest, how thou wilt deal with this man, as if 


1 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken 2 Ch. Dundas, A7/imanjaro and tts 
der Dschagganeger, p. 185; J. Raum, eople, p. 123. 
op. cit, p. 193. ; 


Vv WORSHIPLOF THE SK YAN EASTERN AFRICA © 211 


thou wouldst beget him anew.” The goat is taken away, 
brought behind the house, and slaughtered. The flesh they 
eat themselves. Ruwa gets only the soul. 

Again, when rain is wanted, and the rainmaker has Goats 
uttered his incantations and sacrificed to the ancestral C"s<'° 
spirits, but all in vain, he will advise the chief to offer rain. 
Sacrifice to: Ruwa or the Sun. He: will say, “The rain 
would have come by now, O chief, but it is hindered by a 
Man of the Sun. A goat must be sacrificed over the door 
of the hut, and beer and milk must be spat upward”. 
Accordingly the sacrifice is offered by the rainmaker, assisted 
by an old man. The goat is hoisted on the thatched roof 
of the chief’s hut and stretched out at full length on its 
back over the doorway, with its horns fastened in the thatch. 
Kneeling on the goat, the wizard receives a calabash full of 
beer, takes some of the beer in his mouth, spits it four times 
towards the sky, and prays, “Sun, my Chief, let the rain fall 
onus!” Then he does the same with the milk. Lastly, 
he stabs the goat to the heart with a knife, thus accomplish- 
ing the sacrifice. The goat is then taken down from the 
roof and cut up. The rainmaker carries home one half of 
the animal, and his assistant gets the other.’ 

Again, when a married pair are childless or all their Sacrifices 
children have died, they seek to procure offspring by offering eg 
a sacrifice to Ruwa or the Sun. The sacrifice is offered at 
noon, when the sun is in the zenith, for that is the right 
time to sacrifice to Ruwa. The victim, a goat, is laid on its 
back at the entrance of the hut so that half of its body 
projects into the house. Men and women strip themselves 
naked and stand beside the victim. The old people say, 

“ We have given heed to that which here cuts off the thread 
of life, and we find that the cause is not any human being 
here on earth, but that it is He on High, who turns his eyes 
down on us below. It is He in his wrath. But if we 
sacrifice to him, the trouble will cease, he will give you 
the child.” Before the goat is stabbed to the heart, the 
childless couple spit four times between its horns, and 


sel mohAum, -0f, cele pp. 198: s7. ; 2 Bruno Gutmann, ‘ Feldbausitten 
compare B. Gutmann, Déchten und und Wachstumsbrauche der Wads- 
Denken der Dschagganeger, p 185. chagga,” Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 


live (1913) p. 487. 


Sacrifices 
and prayers 
to Ruwa in 
war. 


Sacrifices 
and prayers 
to Ruwa 
at the 
boundary 
of the 
country. 


212 WORSHIP: OF LL1IsS "SKY LIVALRICA CHAP. 


each of them leaps four times over its body, the husband 
first and after him the wife. Then the victim is slaughtered 
and cut up, and omens are taken from the state of the 
entrails,’ 

Again, when the Wachagga go to war, they sacheee to 
the spirits and Ruwa, and they say, “Ruwa, my Chief, mayest 
thou take me by the hand and lead me safe! Keep for me 
a head of cattle, O Chief, that with it I may sacrifice to thee.” 
And if the army returns with a booty of cattle, they sacrifice 
and give thanks, once to the spirits, and once to Ruwa, say- 
ing, “ Hail, Ruwa, my Chief! Thou hast brought me back > 
safe and sound, so that Iam come to my house. Here is a 
goat, thou wealthy one, mayest thou hereafter lend me 
another !”” 

There is another sacrifice in which Ruwa is brought 
into immediate connexion with the ancestral spirits. The 
Wachagga formerly fortified their country on the side of the 
steppes by deep trenches. By day, to facilitate peaceful 
intercourse, these trenches were bridged by tree-trunks, 
which the wardens of the bridges removed at night. The 
guardian spirit of the bridge was believed to be the ancestor 
who first kept watch and ward at the trench. At the end 
of the rainy season, when the intercourse between the 
different communities, and also with the population of the 
steppes, begins afresh, sacrifices are still offered at all these 
entrances into the country in order to prevent sickness and 
plague from passing the boundary. The sacrifices are 
addressed to God (Ruwa), because the ancestral spirits have 
no power over sickness that comes from far; it is sent not 
by them but by God. The prayer which accompanies the 
sacrifice runs thus: “Thou Man of Heaven, O Chief, take 
this head of cattle. We pray thee that thou wouldest lead 
far past and away the sickness that comes on earth! And 
Thou, O Owner of the Bridge, help us to entreat the Man 
of Heaven that he send us no sickness!” Thus the prayer 
is addressed to God (Ruwa) and to the Owner of the Bridge, 
that is, to the spirit of the dead first Warden of the Marches ; 


1 Bruno Gutmann, ‘* Feldbausitten 2 J. Raum, “Die Religion der 
und Wachstumsbrauche der Wads-  Landschaft Moschi am Kilimandjaro, 7 
chagga,” Zettschrift fiir Ethnologte, Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft, xiv. 
liv. (1913) p. 509. (1911) p. 199. 


Vv WORsMTI PMOL TAGE SRY ANCEASTERN APRICA : 0213 


but the Warden is only besought to act as intercessor with 
the Man of Heaven, the great god Ruwa.' 

Simple prayers, unaccompanied by sacrifices, are also Morning 
offered to Ruwa by pious people both at morning and at @nd¢vening 

prayers to 

evening. Thus at night a man will take his stand in the Ruwa. 
courtyard of his hut and looking up at the sky will say, 
“ Ruwa, O Chief, hail to thee! Thou hast made me to pass 
this day in peace, grant that I pass this night in peace 
also!” And in the morning likewise many people look up 
at the sky, the mid sky, not at the point where the sun 
rises, and as they look they say, “ Thanks be to thee, Ruwa 
O Lord, thou hast guarded me this night. Be pleased to 
guard me also the livelong day and let me not want some 
food to eat!” With these words they spit towards the 
sky... The regular Chagga mode of saluting Ruwa is to 
name the god and to spit thrice towards the sky, his home.® 

The Wachagga tell many stories about Ruwa. Among stories 
these stories is one which professes to account for human 2Pout the 


; ce i Origin of 
‘mortality. It is so remarkable that it deserves to be related Death told 
: by the 
in full. Wachagga. 


The story runs thus. When Ruwa had either created story of the 
mankind or at all events liberated them from confinement,' oe 
he kindly provided for their subsistence. He gave them a 
banana grove, and in the grove of their principal elder he 
planted a great number of sweet potatoes and yams. And 
in the centre he planted a species of yam called U/a, or 
Ukaho, which is planted beneath large trees and trained up 
creeper vines. What follows is related in the words of the 
natives, only rendered-into English. 

“Ruwa instructed the elder of the village in this wise, 

‘I give you leave to eat all the fruit of the bananas, also all 
the potatoes in the banana grove. Eat all the bananas and 


1 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken 
der Dschagganeger, pp. 187 sg. As 
to the trenches, compare Charles New, 
Life, Wanderings, and Labours in 
Eastern Africa (London, 1873), pp. 
403 sg.: ‘‘Issuing from the stockade, 
we came to a deep and spacious fosse, 
over which we had to make our way 
upon a narrow and very shaky plank. 


The whole of Chaga is surrounded by . 


these trenches. They are well dug, 


and are wide, deep, and steep enough 
to make the passage a difficult opera- 
tion to foes, particularly if defended 
by a few brave men. They are the 
work of former generations, and are 
being neglected in these days.” 

2 J. Raun, of. cit. pp. 196 sg. 

3 Ch. Dundas, A¢/émanjaro and tts 
F20ple, PP. 123, 311, 319, 321; 323, 


325, 326, 331. 
4 See above, p. 208 note!, 


How the 
man was 
tempted to 
eat of the 
forbidden 
fruit. 


Death the 
conse- 
quence of 
eating of 
the for- 
bidden 
fruit. 


Another 
story of the 
Origin of 
Death, the 
cast skin 
and the 
naughty 
grand- 
daughter. 


214 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


potatoes, you and your people. But the yam which is called 
Ula or Ukaho, truly you shall not eat it. Neither you nor 
your people may eat it, and if any man eats it, his bones 
shall break and at last he shall die.’ 

“Then Ruwa left the people and went his ways. And 
every morning and evening he came to greet the elder and 
his people. Now one day a stranger came and greeted the 
elder and begged for food. The elder said to the stranger : 
‘Go into the banana grove to eat bananas and _ potatoes 
there, but the potato Ula do not eat at all. For Ruwa 
directed me and my people that we should not eat it, there- 
fore do you not eat it. The stranger said: ‘It is now noon, 
this morning early Ruwa bade me tell you to give me a 
cooking-pot that I might cook this Ula, to eat it with you 
and your people that we may rejoice’. The elder hearing 
that Ruwa ,had sent this stranger, gave him a cooking-pot. 
And the stranger took a digging-stick and dug up the Ula 
and put it in the pot. The elder and the stranger cooked 
the Ula yams, and they started to eat. 

“As they were eating Ruwa’s Minister smelt the odour 
of cooking like to the odour of Ula. At once he came 
running up and askéd them: ‘What do you? What are 
you eating?’ So the elder and the stranger were astonished: 
and greatly afraid, they could find nothing to reply. Then 
the Minister of Ruawa took the pot with the yams and 
carried it to Ruwa. When Ruwa saw them he was. very 
angry and sent his Minister a second time. And he went 
and spoke to the elder and his people: ‘Because you were 
deceived by a stranger and ate my Ula, I shall break your 
bones and burst your eyes, and at last you shall die’. So 
the Minister returned to Ruwa. Since that day they have 
not seen him again, and Ruwa has not sent word to them 
again, and people commenced to be broken, and their eyes 
to be closed, and afterwards they died. Thus the old men 
of the Wachagega tell and know. 7 

“When the Minister had gone to Ruwa, at once the 
people and their elders commenced to sicken in their bones 
and eyes. So the elder prayed to Ruwa for honey and 
milk. And Ruwa hearkened to him, and he sent his 
minister again to tell the elder, ‘Now I will have mercy 





Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 215 


on you and your people. Know henceforth that you shall 
grow to a great age, and when you die you shall cast your 
skin as a snake does, and afterwards you shall become as a 
youth again. But not one of your people may see you 
when you cast your skin, you must be alone at such time. 
And if your child or grandchild see you, in that hour you 
shall die altogether and not be saved again.’ 

“So they lived until the elder became very aged. His 
children seeing this gave him his granddaughter to care for 
him, that he might not fall into the hearth and be burnt. 
Now the old man knew that the day was come for him to 
cast his skin as Ruwa had sent word to him by his Minister. 
And he considered how to be rid of his granddaughter to 
give him opportunity to change his skin. And he said to 
the granddaughter: ‘Bring a gourd and fetch me water 
here’. And the granddaughter brought a gourd. The old 
man took a large needle and made small holes in the 
bottom of the gourd and gave it to the girl and instructed 
her to bring water. The old man knew she would not 
return quickly for the gourd was pierced with many holes. 
The granddaughter went quickly to draw water. But when 
the bowl was filled she saw that all the water leaked out 
because the gourd was pierced with many holes. And she 
made efforts to plug the holes. When she had _ finished 
plugging the holes she filled the gourd. And she placed 
the gourd on hér head and hastened home to her grand- 
father. As she entered the house she was startled, for the 
old man had cast half his skin. The old man stared at her 
in great amazement, and cried out aloud: ‘So be it, I have 
died, all of you will die; I have died, all of you shall die. 
For you, granddaughter, entered while I cast my skin. Woe 
is me, woe is you!’ 

“So the old man slowly wrapped himself up in his skin 
and died. And his children came with his grandchildren 
and they buried him. And that bad grandchild they drove 
away, and she went into the forest. And she became a 
wife and bore children, but not human children; she gave 
birth only to children with four legs and a tail. And these 
indeed are the baboons, and monkeys, and apes, and colobus 
monkeys. Thus the baboons and these others are the 


The origin 
of baboons, 
monkeys, 
and apes. 


The two 
stories give 
two 
different ex- 
planations 
of the 
Origin of 
Death. 


Bothstories 
reported 
inde- 
pendently 
by.a 
German 
missionary. 


The story 
of the Cast 
Skin. 


216 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


children of her who offended against her grandfather. For 
this reason the baboons and their like are called ‘ People of 
the Forest’ or ‘Children of the Curse .”? 

This curious legend has been reported by the Hon. 
Charles Dundas, Senior Commissioner of Tanganyika Terri- 
tory (German East Africa). It obviously comprises two 
apparently distinct explanations of the origin of human 
mortality. According to the one explanation, men die 
because one of the first men ate of a certain kind of yam 
which God had forbidden him to eat under pain of death. 
According to the second explanation, men die because one of 
the first men was seen by his granddaughter in the act of 
casting his skin like a serpent and hence was prevented from 
renewing his youth. For, like many other primitive peoples, 
the Wachagga believe that serpents renew their youth by 
casting their skin: “to grow young like a serpent” appears 
to be a proverb with them.’ 

Both stories—that of the forbidden fruit and that of the 
cast skin-——are reported independently by the German 
missionary, Mr. Bruno Gutmann, one of our best authorities 
on the religion and customs of the Wachagga. His version 
of the story of the cast skin runs as follows: : 

A man and his wife reached a great age. They had 
two children, a boy and a girl. One day the man said to 
his wife, “We must do something to renew our youth”. 
He commanded her saying, “ Plait two market-bags out of 
tree-bark. In them the children shall fetch water, for such 
bags leak, so the children will not soon return.” 

When the wife had woven the bags, she called the two 
children, gave them the two bags, and said to them, “ With 
these bags fetch water to-day, and come not again until the 
bags are full”. The children went away, and the old man 
said to his wife, “Now will we cast our skins like the 
serpents and be young again”. So they began to strip off 
their skin. But hardly had they begun to do so when they 
heard the children talking in the courtyard. The old man 
sent them away again, and cried, “Go to the water until it 
remains in the bag”. The children did as he had bidden 


1 Ch. Dundas, Az/imanjaro and its 2 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken . 


People, pp. 108-111. der Dschagganeger, p. 190, 


V WOKSHIPZ OR TIE SKY IN LASTERN AFRICA 217 


them. Ten times they turned back with the bags drained 
empty. Then they said, “ We will go to the house”. This 
time they went softly and came unperceived into the house. 

There they found their father and mother half stripped ‘rhe story 
of their skin. Their father called out to them, “ Now you aN ae 
see me as I am. Shall I now burst like an earthen pot, or 
shall I burst like a calabash that one pieces together again?” 

The son said, “ Burst like an earthen pot, which one does 
not piece together again”. Then his father burst and died.’ 

In this story the conclusion concerning the burst pot 
introduces us to a third and independent explanation of the 
origin of death which has been clumsily tacked on to the 
story of the cast skin. In its independent form the story 
of the burst pot runs as follows : 

Of old when a man died he burst with a crack like that 
of a gourd-bottle. Then his friends came and sewed him 
up, and he got up as fresh and well as before. Now when 
an old woman drew near to death, she called her children 
and said to them, “I shall now die. Choose ye now what 
kind of death ye wish, my sons. Will ye die and break in 
bits like a gourd-bottle which is patched up again? or will 
ye break in bits like an earthen pot?” They answered, 

“We should like to break in bits like an earthen pot”. 
Then the old woman cried out, “Alas! If ye had said, I 
will break in bits like a gourd bottle, ye should have been 
patched up again. But how shall ye patch up an earthen 
pot when once it is in bits?” Hence men have now in- 
curred the doom of death, which cannot be cured. When 
they die, it is all up with them. They are buried and rot.” 
The thoughts of the Wachagga would seem to be much Another 


occupied with the problem of human mortality, for they tell hee 


yet, another and quite different story to explain it. The Death: the 
story is this: Haas 


A certain man had two wives. The child of one of the verted 
message, 


wives died, and the mother asked the other ‘wife, saying, 
“Go and cast my child into the forest,.and as thou dost so 
say these words, ‘Go and come back like the moon’”. But 
the other wife envied her the ‘child ; and when she laid it 


1 B, Gutmann, Volksbuch der Wads- 2 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken 
chagga (Leipzig, 1914), pp. 119 sg. der Dschageaneger, p. 124. 





In one 
version of 
the Chagga 
story it is 

a serpent 
who tempts 
man to eat 
the 
forbidden 
fruit. 


Re- 
semblances 
of Chagga 
myths to 
Biblical 
stories. 


218 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


down in the forest, she said, “Go and lose thyself and come 
not back; but let the moon go and come back”. Since 
that day the moon comes back after it has vanished, but 
when man dies he comes back no more.’ 

The same story is told by the Masai,” from whom the 
Wachagga may have borrowed it, for the two peoples have 
long been in contact with each other. It contains the 
elements of the perverted message and of the moon, both 
of which are typical of whole classes of myths told by 
simple peoples to account for the origin of death.? 

But to return to the story of the forbidden fruit. In 
Mr. Dundas’s version it is a stranger who tempts the man to 
eat of it, but in Mr. Gutmann’s version it is a serpent. As 
reported by Mr. Gutmann, the story runs thus: In the 
beginning God created a man and a woman. Then he 
created the cattle, bull and cow, then the goats, he-goat and 
she-goat. So he did with all living things, two and two he 
created them. Im the beginning there were only two human 
beings, until they multiplied. God commanded them that 
they should not eat all the fruits which he had made. But 
the serpent ‘deceived the woman, and she ate with her 
husband. The serpent said, “It is a lie, God has deceived 
you. Only eat.” But God said, “I will scatter your sons, 
so that none knows the speech of the other ”.* 

The reader will observe that this version of the story 
contains no allusion to the origin of death. It has the 
appearance of being made up of elements drawn from the 
Biblical stories of the Fall of Man and the Tower of Babel. 
The suspicion that this is so derives support from other 
Chagga legends, which bear some resemblance to the Biblical 
stories of Cain and Abel and the Great Flood. These 
stories have been reported by Mr. Charles Dundas in 
the words of his native informants.° To report and 
discuss them here would be out of place. I will content 
myself with quoting Mr. Dundas’s judicious remarks on 


1 B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken  Folk-lore in the Old Testament, i. 
der Dschagganeger, p. 1243 td., Volks- 52 sqq. 


buch der Wadschagga, p. 156. 4 = =) 
2 Al Civilian ine uasat (Oxtardt B. Gutmann, Dichten und Denken 


1905), pp. 271 sg. der Dschagganeger, p. 182. 
3 See Zhe Belief in Immortality ® Ch, Dundas, Av/imanjaro and its 
and the Worship of the Dead, i. 60sgq.; People, pp. 111-120. 


Vv WORSATP-OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA. 219 


these African parallels to the narratives in Genesis. He 
says : | 

“The first of these myths bears a striking resemblance mr. 
to the Biblical accounts of the fall of man and the origin ate 
of death. The second part recalls very vividly the story African 
of Cain. So also the destruction of mankind by Ruwa pe net 
recalls the story of the flood. ‘The first destruction was by in Genesis. 
a devouring colossus who came from the water, the second 
destruction was caused by an actual flood. 

“These ancient myths sound a little strange in African 
form and applied to conditions which survive to this day, 
but they retain the essential substance and characteristics of 
the ancient Semitic accounts. I have satisfied myself that 
they are familiar to the Chagga people; and that they could 
not have been gleaned from Mission teachings, follows in 
the first place from the circumstance that Mission activities 
have been too recently introduced on Kilimanjaro, in the 
second place these myths are best known to the old people. 
Furthermore, if such legends were imitations of Christian 
teaching there is no reason why they should have been 
restricted to the Old Testament. 

“Merker in his book on the Masai has recounted a 
number of myths which bear an astonishing resemblance to 
the Biblical myths and include the substance of those here 
related. This portion of Merker’s book has been much 
criticized and its authenticity doubted, but it seems to me 
to receive strong support from the fact that similar myths 
are known to the Chagga people. The latter not only have 
lived for generations surrounded by the Masai, and have 
been in close contact with that tribe, but many of them are 
direct offshoots of the Masai, It is therefore very possible 
that they have incorporated in their mythology a part of 
‘ the Masai legends, adapting them to their own conditions of 
life. 

“ There seems no absolute reason for an assumption that 
the Biblical myths could not have been known to the Masai, 
and if they were, it is not surprising that the Wachagga 
should have acquired the same myths. But it is curious to 
observe how the one myth may be cloaked in many different 
forms, while its essential elements are carefully preserved. 


220 WORSHIP OF THE SK Y INSAPRICA 


CHAP. 


Between Noah’s flood and Rimu’s devastation there is con- 
siderable difference, but it is typical of changes in legendary 
that the flood in one place should in another be converted 
into a devouring monster proceeding from the water. Such 
variation seems to me too authentic to be the mere invention 
or repetition of something heard, and suggests rather an 
ancient origin of the myth.” ? 


The While I agree with Mr. Dundas in thinking that the 
Sitch tne Chagga stories which resemble the early narratives in Genesis 
cast skin may have been borrowed from the Masai, and that the 
aunt Masai stories in turn may not improbably be traced back to 


re toit a Semitic source, I would point out that among the Chagga 
wi the 


Biblical @Xplanations of the origin of human mortality there is 
peau re one which at first sight differs entirely from the Biblical 
Death. legend of the Fall of Man. That explanation is given in 
the story of the cast skin, which relates that formerly men 
were able to renew their youth perpetually by casting their 
skins like serpents, which are supposed in like manner to 
slough off old age with their skins and so to live for ever ; 
but of this serpentine immortality, as we may call it, men were 
unfortunately deprived by the ill-timed intervention of some- 
body at the critical moment. As J have had occasion to point 
out elsewhere,” a story of this type is widely diffused over the 
world. At the first blush, it appears to have no connexion 
with the Biblical narrative and the corresponding Chagga 
myth of the Fall of Man, which traces human mortality to 
the eating of a forbidden fruit. Yet a connecting link may 
be detected between them in the part which the serpent 
plays in the Biblical version and in one of the Chagga 


' Ch. Dundas, Avlimanjaro and its 
People, pp. 120 sg. According to the 
legend reported by Mr. Dundas (pp. 
114-117) the monster Rimu was com- 
manded by Ruwa ‘to destroy all 
living human beings and animals, 
because the people have abandoned 
the ancient customs and adopted evil! 
ways; and they have oppressed the 
poor, and have followed indolence and 
pride themselves daily”. Accordingly 
Rimu passed over the earth devouring 
all mankind and all the cattle, goats, 
and sheep, until after seven days 
nobody and nothing was left alive but 


one ‘poor woman, her infant son, and 
her cattle ; for Ruwa guarded her, and 
prophesied that she and her son should 
rule the earth. And when her son 
grew up, he shot and killed Rimu 
with poisoned arrows, But in Chagga 
folk-lore Rimu seems to be the general 
name of a whole class of cannibal 
monsters, about whom many tales are 
told. See B. Gutmann, Volksbuch der 
Wadschagga, pp. 73 59@9. 


The Belief in Immortality and the 
Worship of the Dead, i. 69 sqqg.; Folk- 
lore in the Old Testament, i. 66 sgq. 





Vv WORSHIP OF THE'SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA | 221 


versions of the myth. If in the story the serpent deprives suggested 
man of the boon of immortality, we may surmise that in the [nk be 
original form of the tale the wily creature always did this two myths. 
for the purpose of appropriating to himself the blessing of 

which he robbed mankind; so that the story regularly 

aimed at explaining the cause both of the real mortality of 

men and of the supposed immortality of serpents. In the 
Biblical version the story has apparently been mutilated, 

and thereby rendered unintelligible, by the omission of one 

half of the tale, namely, that which explained the supposed 
immortality of serpents. 

The story which contrasts the mortality of man with the African 
supposed immortality of serpents is found among other sfories of 
Bantu tribes beside the Wachagga. Thus we have found it ity of man 
among the Wafipa and Wabende of Tanganyika Territory,’ contrasted 
It occurs also in a somewhat different form among the Kavi- immortal- 
rondo in Kenya Colony (British East Africa), on the eastern plied ed 
shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza. They say that after the 
first human pair had begotten children, and men multiplied 
on earth, they were subject to all kinds of misery, but death 
had not yet carried away any of them. One day a chameleon Thechame- 
said to a man, “ Bring mea pot of beer”. The man brought ne ae 
the pot of beer, and the chameleon crept up the pot, and the serpent. 
plunged into the beer. Having bathed in it, he ordered 
the man to drink the beer. But the man refused, for he 
abhorred the chameleon, thinking that the mere touch of his 
skin was poisonous. On his refusal, the chameleon said to 
him, “ From henceforth all you men will die”. While he 
was speaking, a snake came along, and the chameleon 
ordered him to sip of the beer. The snake obeyed the 
order and sipped of the,beer. Hence men die and snakes 
do not, because a snake is reborn every time that he sloughs 
his skin.” On this story it may be remarked, that since 
lizards. cast their skin, and the chameleon is a species of lizard, 
the story-teller seems to derive the snake’s power of slough- 
ing his skin from the like power possessed by the chameleon, 
since the snake is said to have acquired this property by 
drinking the beer in which the chameleon had bathed. 


1 Above, p. 199. Mumias district (near Lake Victoria) ” 
2 N. Stam, ‘‘ Bantu Kavirondo of  <Anthropos, xiv.-xv.(1919—-1920) p.979. 


WORSHIP OF THE SKY TN AFRICA CHAP. 


N 
tN 
N 


The woman The Baluba, a great tribe or nation in the valley of the 
Pa ets Congo, tell a story of the origin of human mortality in 
her old skin Which the notion of immortality attained by casting the 
nie ts skin is clearly expressed, though there is no mention of 
her youth, serpents. They say that in the early days of the world 
God granted a woman the power of renewing her youth and 
of transmitting the power to the whole human race, on 
condition that she succeeded in the effort in her own case. 
So when she began to grow old and withered, she took a 
friend’s winnowing-basket and shut herself up in her hut. 
There she began to tear off her old skin and to deposit the 
pieces in the basket. The old skin peeled off easily, and 
underneath it appeared a skin as fresh as that of a baby. 
She had nearly finished the operation, and there only 
remained the head and neck to strip, when her friend 
approached the hut to get back her basket. Before the 
old woman could stop her, she pushed the door open and 
entered. At the same moment the old woman, who had 
almost renewed her youth, fell dead and carried away with 
her the secret of immortality. That is why we must all 
die.’ 
Ged ihe Again, the Baholoholo, a tribe who border on the Baluba 
Mea in the valley of the Congo, say that in the beginning God 
serpent. One day sent for the first man and the first woman and also 
the serpent. Wishing to prove them, he took a kernel in 
each hand and held them out in his clenched fists, one to the 
woman and the other to the serpent, saying to them, “Choose”. 
Now the one kernel contained the seed of mortality and the 
other the seed of immortality. The woman chose the seed 
of mortality, and the serpent chose the seed of immor- 
tality. “Iam sorry for your sake”, said God to the woman, 
“that you have chosen death, while the serpent has chosen 
eternal life.’ That, continues the legend, is why serpents 
do not die, whereas men do so. On this story the missionary 
who reports it remarks that in the opinion of the Tanganyika 
tribes the serpent does not die ; he merely changes his skin; 
he only dies when he is completely crushed.’ 


God, the In this last story, as in so many others of the same type, 
bird, and 
the snake. 1Le R. P. Colle, Zes Baluba 2. Le RP. Collejc les. Gerace 


(Brussels, 1913), li. 522 sg. (Brussels, 1913), li. 507. 


Vv WORST IROL LAE SIYTINGEASTEIRIV AFRICA, 223 

it was clearly the intention, or at all events the wish, of God 

that men should be immortal, and he was grieved that the 
superior sagacity of the serpent had baffled his kindly pur- 

pose. The same feature of the myth comes out still more 
clearly in a Galla version. The Gallas‘say that God sent to 

men acertain bird which is called holowaka or “ the sheep of 

God ”, because its cry resembles the bleating of asheep. This 

bird the deity charged to tell men that they would not die, 

and that when they found themselves growing old and weak, 

they should slip off their skins and grow young again. The How 
bird set out to carry the message, but he had not gone far “Ss, 
before he fell in with a snake eating carrion. The bird said growyoung 
to the snake, “ Give me some of the meat and the blood, and Sa 
I will tell you God’s message”. The snake answered gruffly their skins. 
that he did not want to hear the message. But the bird 
pressed him, and at last he consented to listen to it. The 

bird then said, “The message is this: when men grow old 

they will die, but you, when you find yourself growing infirm, 

all you have to do is to crawl out of your skin and you will 

renew your youth”. That, says the story, is why people 

grow old and die, but snakes change their skins and grow 

young again. God cursed the bird for betraying the secret 

of immortality to serpents. That is why the bird sits 
moaning and wailing on tree-tops down to this day.’ 

It is possible that the Biblical story of the Fall of Man, et ie 
with its significant but mutilated account of the part played of the Fall 
by the serpent in that momentous transaction, was borrowed tie 
by the Hebrews, like so much else, from Babylonian and eae 
ultimately Sumerian mythology. But no such tale has yet alta 
been discovered in Babylonian and Sumerian literature, and 
when we contrast the absence of the story in Babylonia 
with its wide diffusion in Africa, we must not exclude the 
possibility that the myth originated in Africa and was thence 
derived, through one channel or another, by the Semites. 

Even if the story should hereafter be found in a Sumerian 
version, this would not absolutely exclude the hypothesis 
of its African origin, since the original home of the 
Sumerians is unknown. It is conceivable, I do not say 


1 A. Werner, ‘‘Two Galla legends”, cited this story elsewhere (Folk-/ore in 
Man, xiii. (1913) pp. 90 sg. I have ‘the Old Testament, i. 74 5q.). 


Belief in a 
Supreme 
Being 
called 
Imana 
among the 
Warundi 
(Barundi) 
of Urundi. 


224 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


probable, that the Hebrews learned the story from negroes 
with whom they may have conversed during their long 
sojourn in Egypt. Certainly negroes appear to have 
been settled in Egypt as early as the time of the 
Twelfth Dynasty (about 2200 to 2000 B.C.), long before 
the traditional servitude of the Israelites in that 
country. The faces of the Egyptians on monuments of 
the Middle Kingdom are thought to exhibit approxima- 
tions to the negro type, pointing to a mixture of the two 
races; nay it is even surmised that negro blood may have 
flowed in the veins of the royal family, which was of southern 
extraction.. There is therefore no inherent extravagance 
in the supposition that the Hebrews may have borrowed the 
barbarous myth of the Fall of Man from the barbarous 
negroes, with whom they may have toiled side by side in 
the burning sun under the lash of Egyptian taskmasters. 
In favour of an African origin of the myth it may be 
observed that the explanation of the supposed immortality 
of serpents, which probably formed the kernel of the story 
in its original form, has been preserved in several African 
versions, while it has been wholly lost in the Hebrew version ; 
from which it is natural to infer that the African versions 
are older and nearer to the original than tle corresponding, 
but incomplete, narrative in Genesis. 


In Urundi and Ruanda, two districts at the extreme 
north-west of Tanganyika Territory, the basis of the 
native religion is the fear of the ancestral spirits (daz¢mu, 
abastmu) whom the people regard as malignant and 
as the cause of the evils that befall them. Every father 
of a family sacrifices to the spirits of his ancestors and 


1H. R. Hall, in Zhe Cambridge 


Ancient History, i.7 295 sg. As to 
the trading relations of the Egyptians 
with negroes in the south, and the 
representation of negroes on the monu- 
ments, see A. Erman, Agypten und 
dgyptisches Leben tm Altertum (Tiibin- 
gen, N.D.), pp. 659 sgg.; A. Wiede- 
mann, Das alte Agypten (Heidelberg, 
1920), pp. 10, 271 sg. _ There is still 
no general agreement among critics 
and historians as to the probable date 


of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt ; 
but the tendency of recent inquiries 
seems to be to date the Exodus in the 
second half of the thirteenth century . 
B.C., under King Rameses II. or his 
successor King Meneptah (Merneptah). 
See Zhe Cambridge Ancient History, 
ii. (eambrgees 1924), pp. 356 note ’, 
403 note!, 694; A. Lods, in Revue 
de P Histoire des pee fie xc. (1924) 


Pp. 134-138. 





Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA = 225 


of his other deceased relations in the little grass huts 
which stand near his dwelling, for in them these ghostly 
beings are believed to reside.1 But at the same time the 
people acknowledge the existence of a high god or Supreme 
Being whom they call Imana. He.is spoken of by some of 
our authorities as the Creator of the World;” and though 
Father Van der Burgt, a high authority on the language and 
religion of the Warundi or Barundi, denies that Imana is 
conceived of as a Creator in the strict sense of the word, by 
which he means one who creates something out of nothing, 
he admits that in the opinion of the natives, Imana, either 
alone or with the help of two other spirits, Rikiranga and 
Riyangombe, made all visible things, and that he is supposed 
to dispense life and death, prosperity and misfortune to his 
creatures.” The real religion of the Warundi, he tells us, 
consists in the worship of evil spirits whom they identify 


The real 
religion of 
the War- 


with the souls of the dead. Imana is a spirit superior to all undi the 


the others ; he is the first of the ghosts; he has ordered and 
arranged everything, and, in the view of the Warundi, he is 
the master of everything in our planetary system.* Although 
the Warundi say that Imana has set everything in order, 
and that he still intervenes in everything, bestowing life and 
rain and the fruits of the earth, and healing diseases, yet 
their beliefs concerning him are confused and inconsistent ; 
for sometimes they confound him with the spirits of the 
dead, and sometimes they regard him as a sort of Pan, who 
embraces and includes all created beings. Further, they look 
upon him as their national god, and think that he was the 
first ancestor of their tribe, of their kings, and even of the 
whole human species. In short, as Father Van der Burgt 
remarks, it is very difficult to form an exact idea of Imana, 
and the difficulty is increased by the loose way in which the 
Warundi employ the name Imana. Thus, they apply it to 
a sacred grove, to the king of Urundi, to a cock, to the 
sacred bull, to the sacred lance, to amulets, and so forth. 


1 J. Czekanowski, Forschungen im 3 J. M. M. van der Burgt, Diction- 
Nil-Kongo-Zwischengebiet, i. (Leipzig, naire Francais-Kirundi (Bois-le-Duc, 
1917) p. 298; H. Meyer, Die Barundi 1903), p. 135. 

(Leipzig, 1916), p. L119. 

2 J. Czekanowski, of. ctt, i. 301; 4 J. M. M. van der Burgt, Déction- 

H. Meyer, Die Barundt,.p. 120, naire Francats-Ktrundt, p. 167. 


VOL. I Q 


worship of 
the dead. 


Belief in a 
Supreme 
Being 
called 
Imana 
among the 
Banya- 
ruanda of 
Ruanda. 


WORSHIP OF THEISK YIN ALKICA CHAP. 


226 


Further, they call Imana by many different names, and con- 
fuse or identify him with many different deities. Yet they 
neither sacrifice nor pray to him. They seem to regard 
him as a Being too lofty to be approached by: man, and they 
turn for help rather to the inferior deities, who, having been 
once men themselves, are believed to be more closely knit 
to humanity.” 

The like vagueness and uncertainty characterize the con- 
ception of Imana in the neighbouring province of Ruanda. 
He is said to be the Creator, yet his relations to the inferior 
divinities are not clearly defined. The idea which the 
Banyaruanda have of him is dim and misty. He is said 
to have created the first man and woman and to have 
given them fire. He is the master of thunder, lightning, 
and rain; and people pray to him in some such words 
as these: “Be favourable to me, Imana, thou who hast 
made me, who hast made my father, and my grandfather, 
and my grandfather’s father, and my grandmother, and 
my grandmother’s mother, and my own mother. He has 
healed: me, ‘how. has~ he® healed= me!” Yet tempat 
ruanda do not sacrifice to Imana. Hence he plays no 
part in their worship, and his only function is to satisfy 
what we may call a theoretical or philosophical craving.? 
His home would seem to be in the sky. He is spoken of as 
the King of Heaven, and he is said to have created animals 
and plants in the sky, where men at first lived with him in 
bliss, for sickness and suffering were then unknown.* Besides 
his proper name Imana, the Supreme Being is known in 
Ruanda under various titles, such as Rugaba, “The Giver”, 
from a verb kugaba, “to give”; Rulema, “The Creator”, 
from a verb kulema, “to create”; and Rugtra, “He who 
makes to possess”, from a verb kugira, “to make to 


possess ”.° 


i jee Me Mi evan sderaButet.<0f. 1¢72, 
p. 214; H. Meyer, Dze Barundi, pp. 
120 sg. 

2 H. Meyer, Die Barund?, p. 120. 

3 J. Czekanowski, Forschungen tm 
Nil - Kongo - Zwischengebiet, i. 301; 
A. Arnoux, ‘‘ Le Culte de la Société 
Secréte des Imandwa au Ruanda’’, 
Anthropos, vii. (1912) p. 285. 


4 Le P. Loupias, ‘‘ Tradition ‘et 
Légende des Batutsi sur la Création 
du Monde et leur Etablissement au 
Ruanda”, Anthropos, iii. (1908) pp. 


2, 35 5: 
5 A. Arnoux, ‘*Le Culte de la 
Société Secrete des Imandwa au 


Ruanda”, Anthropos, vii. (1912) p. 
383. 





Vv WORSHIP. OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA oily 


In Kiziba, a district of Tanganyika Wlernitory. toy. the metier ina 
west of Lake Victoria Nyanza, the natives entertain Np at: 
similar idea of the Supreme Being, whom they call Rugaba. galled 
But they can give no exact account of him.’ He is believed pees 
to have created men and cattle, and so long as man lives natives of 
he is thought to be in the power of Rugaba. Yet the “”* 
people never sacrifice and seldom pray to Rugaba. It 
is said that only in the case of a difficult birth do they 
appeal for help to the Creator of Men.' Thus the name 
Kugaba given to the Supreme Being in Kiziba coincides 


with one of the titles applied to him in Ruanda. 


Of all the native tribes who inhabit the lake region of The fa. 
Central Africa, the Baganda, who give their name to the en 
Uganda Protectorate, are probably at once the most powerful ~~ 
and the most advanced. They occupy the country which 
borders on the north-western shores of Lake Victoria Nyanza, 
bounded on the east by the head waters of the Nile, where 
the great river flows out of the great. lake. The Baganda Their 
worship, or rather worshipped till lately, a number of national ee 
gods, who appear to have been at one time human bcings, 
noted for their skill and bravery in their life, and raised to 
the rank of deities after their death.” The theory of the 
human origin of the national gods of Uganda is strongly the wor- 
confirmed by the practice of worshipping every dead king in Beriagle 
a special temple, where his jawbone and navel-string were it 
preserved with religious care, and where his spirit was 
regularly consulted as an oracle by a medium or prophet, 
who was believed to be directly inspired by the ghost.’ 

“The ghosts of kings”, we are told, “were placed on an 
equality with the gods, and received the same honour and 
worship ; they foretold events concerning the State, and 
advised the living king, warning him when war was likely to 
break out. The king made periodical visits to the temple, 
first of one, and then of another, of his predecessors. At 
such times the jawbone and the umbilical cord were placed 
on the throne in the temple, and the King sat behind them ; 


1 H. Rehse, A7s7ba, Land und Leute LOT) pe a7 ke 
(Stuttgart, 1910), pp. 125 sg. * J. Roscoe, 7hke Baganda, pp. 252 
2 J. Roscoe, Zhe Baganda (London, — syq. 


228 WORSHIP. OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


they were handed to him, and he examined them and 
The wor- returned them to the custodian.”* Yet even more important 
ship of ? RF 
ancestral in the practical religion of the people appear to have been 
spirits. the ghosts of their own departed kinsfolk, for ghosts were 
believed to possess an incalculable power for good or evil, 
and they were worshipped in small shrines built near their 
graves, where offerings of beer and clothes were made to 
them by their relatives.” Thus on the whole the religion of 
the Baganda may be described as essentially a worship of 
the dead. 
Worship of At the same time the Baganda acknowledged the 
a Suprem: existence of a Supreme God, the Creator, whom they named 
Katonda Katonda. He was called the Father of the Gods, because 
eee he had created all things, including the inferior deities, who, 
after appearing on earth in human form for some time, 
returned to Gad. However, not much was known about 
Katonda, and he received little honour and attention. He 
had a temple on the Banda Hill in the Kyagwe district, 
but it was only a small hut, much inferior to the temples of 
the God of Plenty and the God of War. He had a medium 
or prophet who gave oracles by night; no fire or light was 
allowed to burn in his temple. Offerings of cattle were 
occasionally made to him ; some of the animals were killed, 
but most were decorated with a bell round the neck and 
allowed to roam about during the day, while at night they 
were brought to one of the huts. The king sometimes sent 
as a special offering an animal which was never killed. 
Indeed, he annually despatched a gift of an ox and a milch 
cow to the temple, and he worshipped the deity on behalf of 
his people and of the country. But Katonda never came to 
earth, nor did he take any active part in ruling the world ; 
he left the management of affairs to the inferior gods, his 
sons. A common saying of the people was that the Creator 
had done his work, and there is no need to disturb him ; 
the task of carrying on the business of this sublunary | 
sphere had been deputed by him to other deities, whose 
duty it was to see that all went on smoothly.’ 


1 J. Roscoe, 7he Baganda, p. 283. 7a., Twenty-five Years in East Africa 
2 J. Roscoe, The Baganda, pp. 273, (Cambridge, 1921), pp. 136 sg. Com- 
285 sg. pare C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin, 
3 J. Roscoe, Zhe Baganda, p. 312; Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 229 


The Sky-god Gulu is said by the Baganda to have Descent of 
been a son of Katonda and father of Kintu, the first man peas 
who came to earth, and who reigned as the first king of from 
Uganda. All the kings of Uganda traced their descent in eo ene 
an unbroken line to Kintu and hence to his grandfather, 
the Supreme God Katonda.' 

Ankole is a district lying to the south-west of Uganda. nue 
The country is hilly, interspersed with tracts of rolling Banitn: " 
grassy plain and valleys. A few of the hills are extinct ens 
volcanoes, in the craters of which nestle lakes of clear ; 
water embowered in luxuriant tropical vegetation.? The 
climate is healthy and the country lends itself well to 
cattle-breeding ; the governing class consists of a people 
who are entirely pastoral in their habits. They are known 
among the neighbouring tribes as Bahuma or Bahima, 
though they themselves prefer to be called Banyankole. 

They are a tall, fine race, though physically not very strong. 
Women as well as men are above the usual stature of their 
sex in other tribes. The features of these pastoral people 
are good: they have straight noses with a bridge, thin lips, 
finely chiselled faces, heads well set, and a good carriage ; 
indeed, apart from their: swarthy complexion and_ short 
woolly hair there is little of the negroid about them. They 
undoubtedly belong to the Hamitic stock, and they differ 
from other branches of Bahuma in having kept their race 
pure by refraining from intermarriage with members of 


(London, 1882), i. 206: ‘‘ They [the 
Baganda] believe in a Supreme Being 
who made the world and mankind, 
and whom they call Katonda, or the 
Creator, but they offer no worship to 
him, as they consider him too exalted 
to pay any regard to mankind. Their 
principal objects of worship are inferior 
gods or devils called /udart.” This 
statement must be corrected by Mr. 
Roscoe’s fuller and more accurate 
evidence. It seems probable that other 
_ generalstatementsas to AfricanSupreme 
Beings, who are said not to be wor- 
shipped, might have to be similarly 
limited or corrected if we knew more 
about the religion of the people. 

1 J. Roscoe, 7wenty-five Years in 
Oswalt (UD 137, 1353 24., 


‘Further Notes on the Manners and 
Customs of the Baganda”, Journal of 
the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. 
(1902) pp. 25, 26, with the genealogical 
table, plate ii.; 7@., Zhe Baganda, pp. 
136, 214, 460 sgg. In the tradition 
recorded in this last passage (pp. 460 
sgg.) Kintu is said to have married 
Nambi, daughter of Gulu, the king 
of Heaven; but he is not spoken of 
as a son of Gulu. For the legend of 
Kintu and Nambi, see also Sir Harry 
Johnston, Zhe Uganda Protectorate 
(London, 1904), ii. 700 sgg. 


2 J. Roscoe, Zhe Banyankole (Cam- 
bridge, 1923), p. 3. Compare zd., 
The Northern Bantu (Cambridge, 
1915), pp. IOI sg. 


The negro 
aborigines 
called 
Bahera, 


Ruhanga, 
the chief 
god of the 
Bahuma, 
dwells in 
the sky but 
is not wor- 
shipped. 


230 WORSHIP OR TAR ISKVGLN TAL RIGA CHAP, 


negro tribes. Their ancestors must long ago have invaded 
and conquered the aborigines, who were true negroes and 
devoted to agriculture. The conquerors did not exterminate 
the original inhabitants of the land but reduced them to a 
state of serfdom, in which their descendants continue to this 
day. These serfs or peasants are known as Bahera. They 
cultivate fields of millet for their own use, keep a few sheep 
or goats with which to buy wives or pay fines, and serve 
their masters the Bahuma or Banyankole, for whom they 
perform all the menial tasks and drudgery of transport, of 
building huts and cattle-kraals, and so forth, as well as 
supplying them with beer and any vegetable food they 
may require.’ This superposition of a tribe of conquering 
Hamitic herdsmen on an aboriginal negro population of 
agricultural peasants, with a consequent division of the 
people into two classes which differ fundamentally from each 
other in race, as well as in their habits and modes of life, is 
characteristic of other parts of the Lake region of Central 
Africa; it recurs notably in Bunyoro, as we shall see 
presently. 3 

The Bahuma are not a very religious people; the gods 
do not trouble them much, and they do not often trouble 
the gods. Their chief deity is named Ruhanga. He lives, 
or used to live, in the sky, and he is known as the Creator 
and Powerful One. The world is said to belong to him ; 
his favour brings life, his anger inflicts sickness and death. 
Yet he receives no worship and no offerings ; he has neither 
temple nor priest, and people do not pray to him. However, 
they utter his name in certain ejaculations, such as 7Jata 
Ruhanga, an exclamation of joy, accompanied by the 
clapping of hands, at the birth of a child. Also they some- 
times cry out, “May Ruhanga heal you!” (Ruhanga akut- 
ambire). Still, everybody knows Ruhanga and acknow- 
ledges his existence; he is the great benefactor from whom 
they receive all the good in life as a matter of course and 
without any thought of making him a return in the shape 
of offerings. He is said to have created a man Rugabe and 
his wife Nyamate and sent them to people the earth. They 


1 J. Roscoe, 7he Northern Bantu, Africa (London, etc., 1922), pp. 53, 
pp. 102 sg. 3 %., Zhe Soul of Central 5659.3 td., The Bunyankole, pp. 1, 94. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA = 231 


had a son Isimbwa, who was the first of a dynasty of kings 

that ruled the country. These kings did not die, but 
became the gods of the land. They had no temples, 

but there were certain men and women who professed 

to be their mediums or prophets and claimed the power 

of healing diseases and otherwise helping the people.’ But, Thereligion 
as happens with so many African peoples, the most a eae 
important part of the religion of the Bahuma is the wor- mainly a 
ship of the dead. All classes of the people, from the ities 
king downwards, have or had till lately shrines for their 

family ghosts, to whom they daily offer milk from certain 

cows which are specially dedicated to the use of these 

august beings.” 

Similarly the Bambwa, a turbulent tribe of mountaineers A Creator 

inhabiting the western slopes of the Ruwenzori range, Renae 

f ged, but 

acknowledge the existence of a Creator, but pay him no not wor- 
worship and make him no offerings. The only supernatural Ne 
beings whom they believe to exert any real influence on Bambwa. 
their lives are the spirits of the dead, which accordingly 
require to be propitiated by offerings. Children are named 

after ancestors, because the ghosts are supposed to become 

the guardians of their youthful namesakes, the ghosts of 

men looking after boys, and the ghosts of women taking 

girls under their protection.? 

To the north-west of Uganda lies Bunyoro or Kitara, as Bunyoro or 
it should rather be called, which was at one time the largest - 
and most powerful of all the independent kingdoms in the 
lake region of Centra] Africa. It was not until some three or 
four generations ago that the territory and power of the 
kingdom began to dwindle in consequence of the encroach- 
ments of its great enemies, the Baganda.* Most of the 
country is a rolling plain covered with coarse grass. Yet 
the flora is very rich and varied, though during the dry 
season little meets the eye but a scorched and _ arid 
waste. The advent of the rains produces a sudden outburst 
of tropical growth which transforms the desert as by magic 


1 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, 25 sg. 


p. 131; z@., The Banyankole, p. 23. 3 J. Roscoe, The Bagesu (Cambridge, 
In the former work the author gives 1924), pp. 148 sg. 
the name of the chief deity as Lugaba. 4 J. Roscoé, 7he Bakitara or Ban- 


2 J. Roscoe, Zhe Banyankole, pp. yoro (Cambridge, 1923), p. I. 


The two 
races of 
Bunyoro, 
the 
conquering 
Banyoro. 
(Kitara) 
and the 
subject 
Bahera. 


Belief of the 
Banyoro in 
a god 
Ruhanga, 
the Creator 
and Father 
of Man- 
kind. 


No temples 
or priests 
of Ruhanga, 


232 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


into a beautiful garden. On the whole the country is best 
adapted to the rearing of cattle.’ 

The dominant people of Bunyoro or Kitara are not 
negroes, but a branch of the Hamitic stock, akin to the 
Bahuma of Ankole. At some early date their ancestors 
invaded the country, apparently from the north-east, con- 
quering and subjecting to their rule the negro aborigines. 
These conquerors, like those of Ankole, were pastoral 
nomads commonly known as Bahuma; and the conquered 
negro aborigines, as in Ankole, were called Bahera, and 
subsisted chiefly by a rude sort of agriculture. The relations 
between the conquering herdsmen and the subject farmers 
were much the same as in Ankole, though in Bunyoro the 
division between the two races has not been maintained 
with the same rigour, the rulers sometimes allowing members | 
of the subject people to rank as freemen and to marry 
women of the pastoral clans. The result of the inter- 
marriage has been to modify the customs and to some extent 
the physical type of the dominant race and to assimilate 
both to those of the aborigines.” 

The Banyoro or Bakitara are reported to have had many 
objects of worship, but only one god, Ruhanga, the creator 
and father of mankind. With him were associated the 
names of Enkya and Enkyaya Enkya, two mysterious beings 
whose identity it is not easy to separate from that of 
Ruhanga. One of Mr. Roscoe’s native informants asserted 
that the three were a trinity and yet one god; but as he 
had been for some years a devout Christian, in constant 
attendance at the Roman Catholic Mission Station, his 
statement may have been coloured by Christian ideas. 
The general impression which Mr. Roscoe received from his 
inquiries was that the belief of the Bakitara was entirely 
monotheistic, and that if the three beings were not one deity, 
then Enkya and Enkyaya Enkya were subordinate gods 
whose appearance in the native theology was later than that . 
of Ruhanga. No temples or priesthoods were dedicated to 
any of the three; but in time of distress or need people 
called upon Ruhanga and more frequently on Enkya, stand- 


1 J. Roscoe, Zhe Bakitara, pp. 3, 5. 
2 J. Roscoe, The Bakitara, pp. 6 sgg., 12 sg. 


Vv WORKSUIT OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA. . 233 


ing in the open with hands and eyes raised skywards, while 
they prayed. Thus Ruhanga was apparently conceived of 

as dwelling in heaven. But on the whole he was supposed 

to have retired from active participation in the affairs of the 
world which he had created; and people generally turned 

for help, not to him but to a misty and somewhat bewilder- The Bach- 
ing collection of beings called the Bachwezi, supposed to” 
be immediate descendants of Ruhanga, but completely sub- 
ordinate to him. They were regarded as immortal and 
almost divine. After living as men in the country for 
many years, these Bachwezi suddenly departed, leaving 
behind them their priests, who could communicate with them 
and obtain blessings and favours from them for the people.’ 

It seems to have been especially in seasons of drought, Prayersand 
when the ordinary means for procuring rain had been Eaeccane 
employed without effect, that an appeal was made to for rain, 
Ruhanga to have compassion on the people and unlock the 
celestial fountains. Thus, when the local rain-makers had 
sought in vain to wring the needed showers from the 
reluctant sky, when the crops were dying and the pasturage 
failing, the people used to petition the king, who accord- 
ingly instructed the chief rain-maker of the district to 
discharge his office, and supplied him with a red and 
black bull, a ewe, a black he-goat, and two white fowls, 
the colours of the creatures being chosen to represent the 
sky in different aspects, bright, dark, and variegated. The 
rain-maker told thé king’s messengers which of the animals 
he would require for the offering, and these were put in his 
hut and remained there all night. . Early next morning the 
rain-maker and his assistant set out with the destined 
victims for the sacred shrine. One of these holy places, 
where solemn intercessions were made for rain, Mr. Roscoe 
was allowed to visit. It was a glade in the deep forest, 
_where the overarching boughs of tall trees shed a religious 
gloom over the quiet place. At one end of the glade were 
two pits, of no great depth, which were said to have been 
dug by the hand of Ruhanga himself. A few feet away 
among the bushes stood some water-pots, which were used 


1 J. Roscoe, 7he Bakitara, pp. 21-sg. Compare td., The Northern Bantu, 
phere h Be 


234 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


during the ceremony to work the sympathetic magic that 
formed an important element of the rite. When one of the 
victims had been killed, some of the blood was poured into 
each of the pits, and its body was cast into one of them. 
Then a vessel of water was brought from a neighbouring 
spring, and the rain-maker raised his hands and prayed thus 
to Ruhanga: “ Ruhanga, bless us. Thou king of all the 
earth, hear us. The people are dying from hunger.’ With 
much ceremony the water was then poured into some of the 
pots and left exposed to the air, in order to draw down rain 
by sympathetic magic.’ Thus in the ritual of the Bakitara, 
as in that of so many other peoples, religion is blent with. 
and reinforced by magic. 

White bull Sometimes when rain failed to come, one of the rain- 

eres makers would send to the king to tell him that it was 

forrain. necessary to make a special offering at an empty pit far 
away in the wilderness. A white bull was demanded as the 
offering, and with it the rain-maker and his staff set off for 
the pit. There the bull was offered to Ruhanga and then 
killed near the pit, while prayers for rain were put up. It 
is said that rain invariably fell a short time after the 
ceremony.” 

Ruhanga Apparently Ruhanga was believed to be married, for a 

and his —_ story is told of a dispute as to precedence between his three 

three ° 

grandsons. grandsons, which Ruhanga settled by means of three pots of 
milk which he gave the brothers one evening to hold and 
not put down. In the morning Ruhanga decided in favour 
of the youngest, Machuli, because his pot alone was full of 
milk, while the pot of the second brother was not full, and 
the pot of the eldest brother was empty. Ruhanga declared 
that Machuli, the youngest, should rule them all, that his 
second brother, Mugati, should look after his milk, and that 
the eldest brother, Musiganjo, should be the slave of all, to 
build, and to carry, and to eat potatoes.’ 

Story of Like many other African tribes, the Banyoro or Bakitara 

eae trace the origin of death to a doom of their great God. They 

the woman say that at one time men rose again from the dead and came 


and the 


dog. 1 J. Roscoe, The Bakitara, pp. 28-30. 


2 J. Roscoe, The Bakitara, pp. 31 sq. 
3 J. Roscoe, The Bakitara, pp. 336 sg. 


V WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 235 


back to their friends on earth. Only animals did not enjoy 
the privilege of resurrection ; when they died they remained 
dead. Now there was a man who lived with his sister, and 
she had a dog of which she was very fond, and the dog 
died. When people rose again from the dead, it was the 
custom that all the living adorned themselves in their best 
to go and meet their risen friends, The man and his friends 
said to his sister, “ Put on your good clothing and come to 
meet the risen”. But she answered, “No. Why should I 
go when my dog is dead and gone?” Ruhanga overheard 
her reply and was angry. He said, “So people don’t care 
what becomes of the dead. They shall not, rise again, for 
death will end their careers.” So now, when a man dies, 
he does not rise again from the dead.’ 

A different story of the origin of death was recorded by Another 
Emin Pasha among the Banyoro or Bakitara. They say aie 
that in primeval times people were numerous on the earth ; Death: the 
they never died but lived for ever. But as they grew pre- Syncs, 
sumptuous and offered no gifts to “the great Magician ” and the 
who rules the destinies of man, he was angry and killed °°” 
them all by throwing the whole vault of heaven down upon 
the earth. But in order not to leave the earth desolate, “ the 
great Magician” sent down a man and woman from above. 

Both the man and the woman had tails. They begat a son 
and two daughters who married. One daughter bore a 
loathsome beast, the chameleon ; the other daughter bore a 
giant, who was the moon. Both children grew up, but soon 
they quarrelled ; for the chameleon was wicked and spiteful, 
and at last “the great Magician” took the moon up to the 
place in the sky whence it still looks down upon the earth. 
But, to keep in remembrance its earthly origin, it waxes, 
growing large and bright, and then wanes as though it were 
about to die; yet it does not die, but in two days passes 
round the horizon from east to west and appears again, tired 
from its journey and therefore small, in the western sky. 
But the sun was angry with his new rival and burned him, 
and you may see the marks of burning on the moon’s face 
any clear and moonlit night. As for the chameleon, his 
progeny peopled the earth; in time they dropped their tails, 
1 J. Roscoe, Zhe Bakitara, p. 337. 


236 WORSHIP-(OF THIS SHY ANALPAICA CHAP. 


and the original pallor of their skin changed into a dusky 


hue under the torrid beams of an African sun. Down to 
the present hour the heavenly bodies are inhabited by people 
with tails who have many herds of cattle.’ 


The cha- This legend of the origin of death combines two. 


meleon and mythical personages, the chameleon and the moon, who 
the moon 


in stories of usually appear in different versions of the myth, in one of 

rhe te which the chameleon is represented as the messenger whose 
tardy pace robbed man of the boon of immortality, while in 
the other the monthly return of the moon after its apparent 
decline and destruction is contrasted with the fate of man, 
who dies and returns no more.” Perhaps Emin Pasha’s 
native informant confused the two distinct versions of the 
story. 

The Basoga Immediately to the east of Uganda, but separated from 

of Busoga. it by the head waters of the Nile, where the river issues from 
Lake Victoria Nyanza, lies the province of Busoga. Its 
native population, the Basoga, are pure negroes of the same 
type as the agricultural peasants of Bunyoro or Kitara. 
Their features are those generally known as negroid; the 
nose is almost bridgeless and flat, the face round, with thick 
but not generally protuberant lips. The chief industry is 
agriculture, but cattle, sheep, and goats are reared, and most 
of the peasants keep a few fowls. In temperament the 
Basoga are much more submissive and pacific than the 
Baganda and Banyoro. From time immemorial they have 
been subject and tributary to one or other of the surround- 
ing nations, particularly the Banyoro and Baganda; and 
this subjection to different foreign rulers may help to 
explain certain differences which have been noted in the 
customs of the several districts. The country is open, 
undulating, and remarkably fertile ; travellers have long 
admired the vast stretches of arable land interspersed with 
great groves of plantains and plots of sweet potatoes.? At 


the present day, unfortunately, under the rule of the native: 


chiefs, the people of this naturally rich and fruitful country 


1 Emin Pasha in Central Africa sqq., 60 sg., 63 sgg. See also above, 
(London, 1888), pp. 92 sg. pp. 136, 149, 163,169,174) ayy, 
2 The Belief in Immortality and the 217 sg., 221. 
Worship of the Dead, i. 60 5g., 65 599.3 3 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, 
Folk-lore in the Old Testament, i. 52  pp.197-200; 7d., Zhe Bagesu, pp. 97 sg. 


——, 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SK YIN ZASTERN AFRICA 237 


have sunk into a miserable condition, and famine has 
attacked them more than once.’ ; 

The Basoga retained their ancient pagan faith and Beliefofihe 
practised their ancient pagan customs long after these were ae 
almost extinct among their neighbours the Baganda, with Being 
whom they are closely connected by language and habits. a earany 
They believe in a Supreme Being whom, according to some Mukama. 
authorities, they call Katonda, the name which the Baganda 
also apply to their chief or only god. The name is said 
to signify Creator, being derived from a verb sutonda, “to 
create”. Perhaps the name may be due to the once 
dominant influence of the Baganda in the country. In the 
Central District of Busoga the Creator, who made man and 
beast, is named Mukama. At one timc he is said to have 
lived in a deep hole on Mount Elgon, where, with his sons, 
he worked iron and forged all the hoes which were first 
introduced into the land. Thus far, therefore, Mukama 
would seem to be an African Vulcan rather than a Jupiter. 
However, he is also believed to be the creator of all rivers, 
which are said to have their source at his mountain home. 

Oddly enough, any child that happens to be born with its Any child 
teeth already cut is taken to be an incarnation of Mukama. pon 


On its birth a hut is built for such a child and a high fence isr egarded 
is erected around it; there the mother is lodged with her ican ation 
infant during the period of her seclusion. When that is of Mukama. 
over, the divine infant is exhibited to relatives and friendsiec cn 
A vessel of water is brought from Lake Kyoga, together the birth of 
with a reed from the papyrus-grass, by the husband's sister’s child. 
son, who has to go secretly to the lake ; nobody may see 
him either going or returning. He takes with him four 
coffee-berries which he offers to the water-spirit of the lake, 
as he draws the water. When the time of seclusion is over, 
two houses are built for the reception of the child, one for 
a sleeping-room, the other for a living-room. To this new 
home the mother and child are conducted with great cere- 
mony. In front walks the husband’s sister’s son, carrying 
1 J. Roscoe, The Soul of Central  Anthropos, iii. (1908) p. 217; M. A. 
Africa, p. 292. | Condon, ‘‘ Contributions to the Ethno- 
graphy of the Basoga-Batamba, Uganda 


* N. Stam, ‘‘The religious Con- Protectorate”, Anthropos, vi. (1911) 
ceptions of some Tribes of Buganda”, pp. 381. 


Elsewhere 
in Busoga 
the Creator 
is called 
Lubare. 


238 WORSHIP "OF THE SK VAN AERICA CHAP. 


the papyrus-reed as a spear, and behind him follow a 
number of medicine-men. Next comes a woman carrying 
a native iron hoe, which she brandishes as she walks. She 
utters a shrill cry as women do in danger, in order to warn 
people of their approach. Behind her walk members of the 
parents’ clan, and the rear of the procession is brought up 
by the father and mother with the child. The mother is 
escorted into the living-room, where a sacred meal is par- 
taken of, and after the meal the child is brought out and 
has its head shaved, the water brought mysteriously from 
the lake being used both to wet the head for shaving and to 
wash it after it is shorn. When the ceremony of shaving is 
over, the father gives his shield to the child. The company 
remain three days with the mother and the holy infant. On 
the third day the papyrus-reed is handed to the child, who 
is thereupon appointed governor over a portion of land. 
The mother remains with the child, for her husband resigns 
her to this pious duty, and her clan presents him with 
another wife to take the place of the Mother of God, whose 
time and attentions are now devoted to the care of the 
infant deity. For the child is regarded as a God, being 
no other than an incarnation of the Creator Mukama, and 
people come to pray to him for whatever they happen to 
want. When the god dies, for he is mortal, a medium or 
prophet is appointed to hold communion with his departed 
spirit and to impart his precious answers to the suppliants 
who come to consult the oracle.’ Thus we see that there is 
much virtue in being born with teeth in Busoga. It secures 
for the happy possessor of the teeth the reputation of being 
a great god incarnate both in his lifetime and after death. 

Elsewhere in Busoga the Creator seems to have been 
known as Lubare, which in Uganda is the general name for 
any god. Under this name he had shrines in different parts 
of the country, to which people resorted to pray and sacrifice. 
The priest presented the offerings to Lubare, then killed the 
fowls in front of the shrine, and divided them. One half went 
to the people who had brought the offerings, and the other 
half went to the priests.” 


1 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, 2 J. Roscoe, Zhe Bagesu, p. 104. 
pp. 248 sq. As to /ubare, ‘‘ god” (plural da/ubare), 


a en 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA — 239 


But in Busoga, as in so many other parts of Africa, the In Busoga 
worship of the gods, including that of the Creator, is over- ¢/(“or"? 
shadowed by the worship of the dead. On this subject I Creator 
will quote the evidence of Mr. John Roscoe, our best authority pal an 
on the peoples of the Uganda Protectorate, in which Busoga by the 
pA ae. Z ‘ worship of 
is included. He says: “In all parts of Busoga worship of the dead. 
the dead forms a most important part of the religion of the 
people, and the belief in ghosts and the propitiation of them 
are the chief features of their most constant and regular acts 
of worship. The gods, with fetishes and amulets, are able 
to do great things for the living; but, after all, it is the 
ghost that is most feared and obtains the most marked 
attention. In child-birth, in sickness, in prosperity, and in 
death, ghosts materially help or hinder matters; hence it 
behoves the living to keep on good terms with them. It is 
because of this belief that people frequently make sacrifices 
of fowls and other animals to the dead and constantly seek 
their help. First and foremost, it is because of the firm 
conviction of the presence of ghosts that the elaborate 
funeral ceremonies are performed. ... In the beliefs of 
these primitive people we must relegate gods to a secondary 


place after the worship of the dead.” ’ 


Mount Elgon is a large range or rather group of moun- Mount | 
tain peaks rising in isolated grandeur on the borders of the soya ae 
Uganda Protectorate and Kenya Colony (British East Africa). its caves. 
It occupies an area of many square miles, and some of the 
peaks are very lofty, the snow lying on them for long periods 
of the year. Copious streams of water gush from springs 
far up the heights and flow down deep, luxuriantly wooded 
gorges, between which the ridges stand out like the ribs of 
a monster stretching away up the mountain sides. On these 
ridges are perched the villages of the natives, but at such 
wide intervals apart that, even with the cultivated ground 
about them, they appear but as specks on the vast slope of 
wild mountain. In some places the mountain breaks away 
in sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high, over the brink of which 


in the language of Uganda, see J. the Anthropological Institute, xxxii. 
Roscoe, Zhe Baganda, p. 271; td,, (1902) pp. 73, 74. 

‘Further Notes on the Manners and _-— ! J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, 
Customs of the Baganda”, Journal of p. 245. 


he 
Bagesu 
of Mount 
Elgon. 


Their 
harvest 
festival. 


240 WORSHIP OF THE SKE VAAN AFRICA CHAP. 


streams tumble into rocky basins far below. The faces of 
these cliffs are thickly draped with maiden-hair and other 
ferns, while a profusion of exquisite tropical or semi-tropical 
plants flourishes in the spray and moisture of the falling 
water. Most of these beautiful waterfalls are sacred, and 
the natives resort to them for the healing of diseases. Some 
parts of the mountain are honeycombed ‘with large natural 
caves capable of holding hundreds of cows and _ several 
families of people. In these caves the natives, with their 
flocks and herds, used to find refuge when they were hard 
pressed by the raids of warlike enemies from the plains 
below. Most of the caverns are approached by steep and 
narrow paths, which can easily be defended against attack, 
and some of them were formerly always kept provisioned 
and ready for occupation in case of sudden need. So long 
as the raiders prowled in the neighbourhood, the cattle were 


kept in the caves during the day and taken out to graze by 


night. Some of these caves have been examined, but they 
showed no sign of permanent habitation, the floors being 
smooth rock without any deposits,’ 

The Bagesu tribe on Mount Elgon is one of the most 
primitive of the negro tribes of Africa, though they are 
surrounded by other Bantu tribes much more advanced than 
themselves. They are an agricultural people, supporting 
themselves chiefly by the cultivation of millet and plantains, 
though they also keep a few cows, sheep, and goats.” The 
clans into which the tribe is divided for the most part 
occupy separate ridges of the mountain and until lately used 
to be at constant enmity with each other, so that it was 
unsafe even for an armed man to wander in the territory 
of another clan. Only after harvest, when beer had been 
brewed, a universal truce was observed between all the 
clans; the people, unarmed, roamed from village to village, 
drinking beer, dancing, and singing by day and by night, 
the festivity degenerating into saturnalia, in which the sexes 
indulged their passions without any regard to the bonds 
of marriage. These orgies were all the more remarkable 


1 J. Roscoe, 7he Northern Bantu, 2 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Banti, 
pp. 161-163; 7@., The Bagesu, pp. pp. 161, 165 sg., 1683 ta@., The 
Lae, Bagesu, pp. 1, 12 5gg., 17 Sg. 


ag 


a — = 


Vv HOUR SIE OF THE SEY UN EASTERN: AFRICA ‘24 


because at other times of the year the women of the tribe 
were strictly chaste, and the men guarded their wives with 
jealous care.’ Another proof of the savagery of the Bagesu Cannibal- 
was their cannibalism. The dead were not buried but carried ee 
out to waste land and deposited there. Then, when darkness 
had fallen, some old women, relatives of the deceased, stole 
out of the village, carved the corpse, and brought back the 
favourite joints to be cooked and devoured by the mourners. 
This ghoul-like feast lasted for days, until the flesh had all 
been consumed, and the bones burnt to ashes. The reason 
the people gave for not burying their dead was that, if they 
allowed a corpse to decay, the ghost would be detained near 
the place of death and would take his revenge by causing 
sickness among the children of the family.?- Thus with these 
savages the fear of the ghost was the source of cannibalism. 
It was also with them at least one of the motives which 
contributed to the prosecution of the blood-feud ; for we are 
told that, when a man had been slain, his relatives would 
keep up a feud against the clan who had killed him and 
would watch, it might be, for years for a chance of slaying 
some member of the clan, in order to pacify the ghost of 
their kinsman, whose wrath nothing but blood for blood 
could appease.’ 

In spite of their savagery the Bagesu are reported to Beliefofthe 
believe in a Creator, whom they call Weri Kubumba. But A 
they did not often trouble him with requests of any kind, called Weri 
If there was a year in which the cows did not bear well, the et 
herdsmen took them to a specially prepared shrine; one 
barren cow was offered to the god by the priest, who then 
drank beer, on which a blessing had been pronounced, and 
puffed it over the other cows. The cow was then killed 
and a feast made for all the owners of cattle, after which the 
herds were driven back to their ordinary pastures.‘ 

Offerings were also made to the Creator at the elaborate Offeringsto 
ceremonies of initiation, when all lads about the age of ie Creater 


at the cir- 


puberty had to undergo a very severe form of circumcision cumcision 
of boys. 


1 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, pp. 161, 177 sg.3 tad., The Bagesu, 
DomeLOLREOA We ISQ “37.5 7d., 87 he, | spp... 40/s¢. 
Bagestu, pp. 3 5g., 15+17 3: 7a., Tenty- 
five Years in East Africa, pp. 241 sg. . 
2 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, 4 J. Roscoe, The Bagesu, p. 8. 


- VOL. I R 


3 J. Roscoe, The Bagesu, p. 23. 


Sacrifice of 
bulls or 
goats. 


Dances 
before 
circum.- 
cision. 


242 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


before they were deemed fit to marry or to share in the 
councils of the men. These ceremonies commonly took 
place every second or third year in a district, but if the 
harvest happened to be a poor one and the supply of beer 
consequently scanty, the ceremony was postponed to another 
year. Early in the morning of the day appointed for the 
performance of the rite, the priest went to the mountain 
shrine of the Creator Weri, which was under the shade of a 
large tree and near a spring of water. He was attended by 
one or more followers, including the chief of the village in 
which the ceremony was to take place. They took with 
them a fowl, usually white, and two eggs; the fowl was 
offered to the god, and was then killed and left at the foot 
of the sacred tree, while the eggs were broken in the path 
for a snake which was supposed to live in the tree. In 
many parts of Africa a green snake, with a patch of orange 
under the head, haunts trees near springs, where it preys on 
birds that come to sip the water. Such snakes are always 
sacred. The particular tree-snake to which the Bagesu offer 
eggs may belong to this species. 

After the Creator had thus been propitiated with a fowl, 
and the tree-snake with eggs, the boys who were to be 
circumcised were taken by the priest and the chief into the 
forest for another sacrifice to the god. If among the lads 
were any sons of chiefs or wealthy men, one or more bulls 
might be provided for the sacrifice and feast ; but if the lads 
were sons of poor men, the sacrificial victims would only be 
goats. One of the animals was taken with them into the 
forest and offered to the god, after which it was killed, and 
the conterfts of the stomach, mixed with water, were smeared 
over the bodies of the boys. A plentiful supply of cooked 
vegetable food and beer had also been brought, and the meat 
of the animal which had been offered to the god was cooked 
and eaten with the vegetables and beer as a sacred meal, 
while the priest pronounced the god’s blessing on each boy. 

When the meal was over and they had drunk freely of 
the beer, the boys returned at a run to the village. They 
arrived there about noon; dancing went on vigorously, and 
the excitement grew apace. Up and down in an open 
space, surrounded by a crowd of spectators, pranced the 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA - 243 


boys, brandishing heavy clubs, with which they were supposed 
to be repelling the assaults of an evil ghost; but too often 
they missed the ghost and hit the spectators, so that broken 
heads were the order of the day, and sometimes the wounded 
succumbed to their injuries. In thus laying recklessly about 
them with their bludgeons the lads were supposed to be 
under the influence of a spirit, to whose account the blood 
spilt, the eyes blackened, and the bruises inflicted were 
doubtless debited. The excitement spread also among the 
crowd: women often grew hysterical, and, shaking in every 
limb, joined in the frenzied dance. They, too, were believed 
to dance under the influence of the spirit. 

By this time the day had worn on to afternoon. The The 
declining sun marked the approach of the hour when the Pcsing of 
boys had to undergo the last, the fearful ordeal, from which, 
under pain of lifelong infamy, they dared not shrink. To 
brace them for it they had to repair once more at a run to 
the mountain shrine, there again to receive the blessing of 
the Creator conveyed to them by his priest. At the shrine 
the priest was waiting for them. To each boy he gave his 
blessing, and smeared the face and body of each novice with 
white clay. The visit to the shrine and the benediction at 
it occupied about an hour, and when it was over, what with 
the beer, and the dancing, and the prospect of the dreadful 
operation now looming immediately before them, the boys 
were wrought up to such a pitch of excitement that on their 
breakneck course back to the village (for they had again to 
go at a run) they needed guides to direct their steps and to The 
help them along. Immediately after their return they under- ©” 
went the operation, each at his own village.’ 

Sometimes, in serious sickness, a diviner discovered by Sacrifice 
the exercise of his art that the illness was brought about by Ay Senos: 
the Creator Weri. Thereupon a goat and two long branches i” sickness. 
of a tree were brought to the house where the sick man lay. 

The branches were planted outside near the door to serve 

as a shrine or shelter for the Creator, and the goat was 

offered to him beside them. If the goat made water while 

the preparations for the sacrifice were afoot, it was a sign 

that the god accepted the offering, whereupon the animal 
1 J. Roscoe, 7he Bagesu, pp. 27-32. 


The 
Bakyiga 
clan also 
believe in 
the god 
Weri. 


Sacrifice 
for rain, 


Were, the 
god of the 
Wawanga. 


244 WORSHIP (OF LAE SKVaINCAL RIC’ CHAP. 


was led away, with drums beating, to the forest, where it 
was killed and eaten. If, however, the deity did not thus 
signify his acceptance of the victim, the goat was taken back 
to the flock, and another goat was brought and tied near the 
tree for a short time, that it might be seen whether the god 
approved of it or not. If he showed by the usual sign that 
he accepted the offering, the goat was conducted to the 
forest and there sacrificed. After that the sick man no 
doubt either recovered or died.’ 

On the northern slopes of Mount Elgon there lived a 
clan called the Bakyiga, who, though they belonged to the 
Bagesu tribe, held little communication with the other clans. 
They, too, believed in the god Weri; but in their opinion 
ghosts were the responsible agents in the affairs of life, and 
to these powerful spirits offerings were made whenever the 
medicine-man called for them.” 

When rain was wanted, the rain-maker offered a fowl to 
rejoice the heart of the god, and he usually smeared some 
of the blood on his fetishes. Afterwards he sprinkled some 
medicated water upwards towards heaven and round him on 
every side, calling upon the spirit to give rain.* This 
sprinkling of water heavenward suggests that the spirit who 
was asked to give rain had his abode in the sky, but whether 
he was identified with the Creator Weri we are not informed. 

The Wawanga, a tribe of the Elgon District in Kenya 
Colony (British East Africa), recognize a god whom they 
name Were. In every village and on the path leading to 
the village may be seen small stones, usually oblong, which 
have been set up in honour of Were.* Sacrifices are offered, 
libations poured out, and prayers addressed to Were and 
the spirits of the dead at a ceremony which takes place in 
honour of a deceased person at the season when the eleusine 
grain is sown; but we are not told that the Were of the 
Wawanga is regarded as a Creator or Supreme Being, nor 
that he is. thought to dwell in the sky. Indeed, in prayers 
addressed to him he seems to be identified with the spirit of 
a person recently deceased.* However, the similarity of his 


Lay. ROsCOe, 7 feu hagern,..03 7. Wawanga and other Tribes of the 
# J. Roscoe, The Bagesu, p. 48. Elgon District, Lritish East Africa”, 
3 J. Roscoe, 7he Bagesu, p. 10. Journal of the R. Anthropological Insti- 


4 JIon, Kenneth R. Dundas, ‘‘The  ¢veée, xliii. (1913) pp. 31, 37. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 245 


name to the Weri of the Bagesu suggests that perhaps in 
one of his aspects he may claim a lofty position in the 
celestial hierarchy. 


The Akamba are a Bantu tribe who occupy an extensive The 
territory in Kenya Colony (British East Africa), at a Cone cae 
siderable distance to the south of Mount Kenya. Their their 
country, known as Ukamba, comprises a series of granitic °°" 
mountain ranges running roughly north and south, with 
great stretches of flat land lying between them. Many 
springs rise on the hills and at their foot, and the intervening 
plains sometimes present a park-like appearance, but oftener 
they are covered with thickets of thorny scrub. Great water- 
courses traverse these plains, but their beds are dry except 
at the height of the rainy season. However, water can 
generally be obtained by digging holes in the clean white 
sand. At these holes women will sometimes sit for hours 
before they can fill their calabashes with the water which 
slowly oozes from them. The country as a whole is treeless: 
only on the tops of some of the higher mountains may be 
seen small remnants of primeval forests. The woods which 
once clothed the hill-sides appear to have been cut down by 
the Akamba to make room for their fields. The western 
district, named Ulu, is the most fertile and best watered 
portion of the country; on the other hand, in the eastern 
portion of Kitui, which is the most easterly district of 
Ukamba, the rainfall is very fluctuating, and severe famines 
occur at intervals of seven or ten years. On the eastern 
borders of Kitui the mountains cease and are succeeded by 
a flat, waterless, bush-covered desert, which stretches away 
unbroken to the valley of the Tana River. The fertility of 
the soil in this desert is extraordinary, but unless the 
wilderness can at some future time be irrigated by water 
from the river, it must remain useless to man.’ 

The Akamba subsist chiefly by agriculture, but they also 
keep cattle and value them highly.» They appear to 

1C, W. Hobley, Zthnology of the 26; Hon. Charles Dundas, ‘ Ilistory 
A-Kamba and other East African of Kitui”, Journal of the RK. Anthropo- 
Tribes (Cambridge, 1910), p. 33 G. logical [nstityte, xlili.(1913) pp. 480 sq. 
Lindblom, Zhe Akamba, Second 2G. Lindblom, Zhe Akamba, pp. 
Edition (Uppsala, 1920), pp. 22 sg., 475 sgg., 501 sag. 


The 
Akamba 
recognize a 
high god 
and creator 
called 
Mulungu 
or Engai, 
who lives in 
the sky. 


Different 
opinions of 
observers 
as to 
Mulungu 
or Engai. 


246 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


~ 


recognize the existence of a high god, whom they call 
Mulungu or Engai (Ngai) or sometimes Chua, which means 
the sun.’ They look upon him as the creator of all things ; 
hence they name him Mumbi, “the Creator”, from wmzda, 
a verb which means “to fashion”, “to shape”, and is most 
commonly applied to the shaping of pottery. Less often he 
is called ‘“Mwatwangi, “the Cleaver”, from atwangga, “to 
cleave into pieces”, because he is thought to have formed all 
living beings originally “as one hews out a stool or some 
other object with an axe”. He is believed to be above the 
ancestral spirits (azz) and all the powers of nature. Yet 
he seldom receives worship in the form of sacrifice or in 
any other way. He dwells in the skies at an indefinite 
distance and is held to be well-disposed towards human 
beings, but beyond that he has nothing to do with them. 
The Akamba say, “ Mulungu does us no evil; so wherefore 
should we sacrifice to him?” It is only on rare and special 
occasions that they pray to him. At the birth of a child 
they have been heard to say, “ Mumbi, thou who hast created 
all human beings, thou hast conferred a great benefit on us 
by bringing us this child’. And when rain is wanted they 
sometimes pray, or seem to pray, for it to Mulungu-Negai, 
yet such prayers, according to one account, are really 
addressed to the ancestral spirits.” 

But so vague and indefinite is the conception which the 
Akamba have formed of this high god that a careful observer 
of them has even denied that they have any word for God 
at all. According to him, the names Mulungu or Muungu 
and Ngai (Engai), “are merely collective words meant to 
denote the plurality of the spiritual world”.? But this con- 
clusion is rejected by Mr. C. W. Hobley, one of our best 
authorities on the Akamba. He says: “ While it is recog- 
nised that great confusion of thought may exist on the 
subject among the bulk of the people, there is little doubt 
that the elders of zt/emo, or tribal shrines, are quite clear on 
the matter. Great care was taken to record only such infor- 
mation on the question as was furnished by this grade of 


1 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 3 Hon. Charles Dundas, ‘ History 
Magic (London, 1922), p. 62. of Kitui”, Journal of the R. Anthro- 

2G. Lindblom, Zhe Akamba, pp. fpological Institute, xliii. (1913) p. 
244 59. 535. 


v WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA — 247 


Kamba society. And as the elders of zthembo correspond, 
in a measure, to the priestly castes of more highly developed 
communities, their opinion has a certain value, and we there- 
fore feel justified in saying that the Kamba religion contains 
the concept of a high god.”* The same view is held by 
Mr. Gerhard Lindblom, a Swedish ethnologist who has made 
a very careful study of the tribe.” Mr. Lindblom appears 
to be also right in holding that the Kamba conception of 
Mulungu is quite distinct from, and independent of, that 
of the ancestral spirits (azz). He tells us that the natives 
generally, though not always, draw a sharp distinction 
between Mulungu and the ancestral spirits, and that Mulungu 
is believed to have created the first man who existed 
before death came into the world, and to dwell in the sky 
“among the clouds”, whereas the ancestral spirits are sup- 
pose to live in the earth or upon it. These beliefs appear to 
be inconsistent with the hypothesis that Mulungu or Engai 
is simply the spirit of the first ancestor of the tribe, or that 
he stands for the whole body of the ancestral spirits col- 
lectively. At the same time Mr. Lindblom admits that the 
terms WMulungu and azmu (ancestral spirits) are often used 
by the Akamba indiscriminately, in particular that in their 
mouth MWzulungu-Ngai is sometimes employed in the sense of 
aimu to denote the ancestral spirits.° 

To an agricultural and pastoral people, living in a country Prayer and 
where there are no lakes, where the river-beds are generally seks 
dry, and where the rainfall is uncertain, drought is apt to or Ngai in 

° SAE time of 

prove a great calamity, and it is no wonder that at such grougnt, 
times the Akamba should appeal to the Creator, Mulungu 
or Engai, to have pity on them and moisten their parched 
fields and pastures with the water of heaven. Scattered 
over the country are shrines or sacred places (mathembo, 
singular zthembo), where the people pray and sacrifice to 
Engai or Mulungu for rain, and where also they worship 
him at times when pestilence has broken out among men or 


1 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and  fices, nor in any other way” (p. 244). 
Magic, p. 62. But sacrifices to Mulungu are recorded 
2 G. Lindblom, 7he Akamba, pp.249 by Mr. C. W. Hobley. See below, 
sgg- Mr. Lindblom says: ‘‘Mulungu pp. 247 sgqg. 
is not worshipped at all (or at least 3G. Lindblom, Zhe Akaméa, pp. 
extremely seldom) by offering of sacri- 245-247. 


248 WORSHIP OF, THE, SKIAIN ARKICA CHAP. 


beasts. Sacred places bearing the same name (mathemdo) 
are also dedicated to the worship of the ancestral spirits 
(azzmu). But whereas the sacred places of the ancestral 
spirits belong to a group of two or three villages, the sacred 
places of Engai or Mulungu belong to the whole country, or 
rather to. each of the large divisions of the country. But 
whether dedicated to the deity or to the spirits, these holy 
spots almost always include a sacred tree at which the sacri- 
Sacred _ fices are offered. In the shrines of Engai or Mulungu the 
he pmes Sacred tree is regularly a fig tree of the sort which the 


the shrines, 
Akamba call szu0. On the other hand, at the shrines of 
the ancestral spirits the sacred tree may be either a fig tree | 
of the sumo species, or another variety of wild fig called 
mumbo, or a tree called mutundu.' 

Procedure When a sacrifice for rain is to be offered to Mulungu or 

caer Sach Engai at one of his sacred places, the procedure is said to be 


forrain. as follows. The elders who are to take part in it must 
observe continence on the preceding night and for six days. 
Ceremonial following that on which the sacred meat was eaten. No 
anne elder may participate in the rite who has the pollution of 
elders. death on him; that is to say, if his wife or child has died, 
and he has not completed the ceremony of purification which 
their decease obliges him to perform; or again if he or one 
of his men has killed some one, and the ceremony of purifica- 
tion designed to relieve a homicide from the guilt or defile- 
ment of bloodshed has not yet been carried out. On the 
day appointed for the ceremony the elders assemble early in 
the morning and repair slowly to the sacred place, taking 
The with them a male goat, usually of a black colour, as well as 
victim and : ° ° 
offerings, milk, snuff, and a small quantity of every kind of produce 
cultivated by the people. Among the produce thus con- 
veyed to the shrine are millet, sorghum, bananas, sugar-cane, 
beans, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins, also beer made from 
sugar-cane (honey-beer is forbidden), red beads, cowrizs, 
leaves of a sweet-smelling plant, butter, and gruel. The 
men lead the goat and carry the milk, gruel, snuff, and 
beer, while the other things are carried to the tree by old 
women. 
The women in general are not allowed to approach the 


1 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, p. 35. 


v WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 249 


tree, but dance together some way off. Six senior elders The 


and six old women are chosen and all proceed to the sacred 
tree. The men go first and taste a little of the milk, gruel, 
and beer, which they spit out at the foot of the tree, and 
then give way to the old women, who go through the same 
ceremony. After that, the men return to the tree and pour 
the rest of the milk and so forth at its foot. Each elder 
now puts some of the snuff in the palm of his hand, takes a 
little and deposits the remainder. Next the women again 
come up and pour the foodstuffs at the foot of the sacred 
tree and smear the butter on the trunk. When the offerings 
have thus been deposited, the officiating elders pray as 
follows: “ Mulungu, this is food. We desire rain, and wives 
and cattle and goats to bear, and we pray God that our 
people may not die of sickness.” 

The sacrifice of the goat follows; but before the animal 
is slain, it is sanctified by being obliged to drink water 
mixed with the pulverized roots of two sorts of trees (the 
verete and muthumba). This done, they lead the goat up to 
the tree, set it up on its hind legs before the trunk, and cut 
its throat, allowing the blood to pour over the offerings 
deposited at the foot of the tree. The upper portion of the 
skull with the horns is cut off and buried at the foot of the 
tree. Small pieces of meat are cut from every part of the 
carcase and from every internal organ and are laid also at 
the foot of the tree. The flesh is then divided ; the left 
shoulder and part of the back are given to the old women, 
while the elders take the rest. Each party, that of the men 
and that of the women, lights a separate fire kindled with 
the wood of a sumo tree, not that of the sacred tree, but of 
another of the same species. The six men and six women 
each stick a fragment of the meat on a skewer of smo 
wood, roast and eat it. This is a ceremonial meal, and 
when it is over they divide up the rest of the meat, and may 
use firewood of any sort to cook it. 


ceremony 


at the 
sacred tree. 


The 
sacrifice of 
the goat. 


The sacrifice of the goat is called Luconya ngnondu, “ to The idea of 


pierce the sacrifice”. But the word sacrifice hardly ex- 
presses the meaning of mgnondu, which rather implies 
purification, or perhaps expiation, the underlying idea being 
that the goat is an expiatory gift offered for the sake of 


expiation. 


Prayer to 
Engai for 
rain. 


The house 
of offerings 
at the tree. 


Ceremonies 
to save the 
crops in 
drought. 


250 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


relieving the country from the effects of the deity’s dis- 
pleasure and from the drought which is a consequence of 
his anger.’ 

In another account of these sacrifices offered to the 
deity for rain, the prayer uttered by the men on depositing 
the offerings is said to be, “We pray to God (Eugaz) that 
rain may bless all our country”.” After the sacrificial meal 
the bones are collected and placed on the fire and covered 
with the contents of the stomach. The smoke which rises 
to heaven is said to be pleasing to Engai.® 

A little house is always built at the foot of the sacred 
tree on the eastern side, with the door facing the rising sun ; 
and two days before the time appointed for beginning to 
plant the crops a pot of water and one of food, as well 
as butter and milk, are placed in it. These offerings are 
said to be for Engai; the pot of water is to remind 
him that rain is wanted, and the food represents the 
crops.’ 

The Akamba of Kitui, which is the most arid and 
rainless district of Ukamba, perform a curious ceremony 
when their crops are in danger of being blighted for lack of 
rain. They snare a couple of hyrax (Pvrocavia sp.) and 
carry them round the fields of standing crops. Then they 
kill one of the animals and release the other. AQ fire is lit 
among the crops, and the heart, intestines, and contents of 
the stomach of the victim are placed upon it. The smoke 
of the sacrifice is said to be pleasing to the deity, that is, 
to Engai. The carcase is not eaten.” For some reason 
the Akamba appear to attribute to the hyrax a power of 
fertilizing their fields. Hence in Ulu, a district of Ukamba, 
the people mix the dung of the animal and other ingredients 
with some of the seed which they intend to sow; the 
mixture is then burned in such a way that the smoke drifts 
over the field. The ashes of the fire are afterwards mixed 
with the seed which is about to be sown. In Kitui, however, 
it is said that a live hyrax is carried round the fields by the 


1 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Me pp. 57 59. 


Mons pp. 53-55. 4 C. W. Hobley, Baztu Beliefs and 
2 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Mae p. 60. 
Mag gic, ie rk ®° C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 


3 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, pp. 60 sg. 


ee 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 251 


villagers in procession ; the animai is then killed and _ its 
blood and entrails scattered over the field.’ 

When a villager sees that his crops are suffering from Prayer 
drought or the ravages of insects, he will go to the bed of a aun aBi 
river and cut the branch of a tree called kzzdzo which grows 
there. He then digs a hole in the ground among the crops, 
and plants the branch in it, together with an egg. On doing 
so he prays to Engai, beseeching him to make his crops 
grow like the Azudzo tree, which never withers.” Here the 
prayer to the deity is reinforced by the magic of the ever- 
green tree. 

On returning from a successful raid, the leader of the Sacrifice 
expedition used to sacrifice the largest ox of the captured Paci 
cattle, and pray to Engai by way of thanking him for his capturing 
favours. But the thanksgiving ceremony never took place “'"® 
at a shrine (zthembo), probably because the deity was 
supposed to shrink from personal contact with the man- 
slayers, at least while the blood or the smell of it was still 
fresh upon them.?® 

The Akamba of Kitui believe that the spirits of their Rebirth of 
dead ancestors sometimes pray to Engai to give them ‘"° 4"¢ 
another body, and that, if the deity grants their prayer, one 
of the spirits will be born again as a human infant. Their 
reason for thinking so is that a woman with child will 
sometimes dream of a dead man night after night, and if she 
afterwards gives birth to a:son, they are sure that the child 
is no other than that same dead man come to life again; so 
the infant is given his name.* 

The Akamba of Kitui observe the widespread custom of Blood 
blood brotherhood, whereby two men make a sacred and ett 
lasting covenant of friendship by exchanging and swallowing sanctioned 
a little of each other’s blood. If such a covenant is broken °¥ '"S* 
by the treachery of either party, the Akamba are very 
shocked, and believe that Engai will injure the traitor’s 
village, probably killing him and his kinsfolk and his cattle. 

On this belief Mr. Hobley remarks that “it is often difficult 
to state with precision whether the high god or the ancestral 


1 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 3 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
Magic, p. 76. Magic, p. 65. 

2 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 4 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
Magic, p. 140. Magic, p. 159. 


Prayer to 
Engai in 
sickness. 


Sacrifice of 
a goat and 
prayer to 
Engai to 
avert 
sickness. 


252 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


spirits are meant when the term Exgaz is here used. In 
this case, however, the high god is probably referred to. 
And if the opinion be correct, it is a striking example of the 
belief in the concept of a personal God, who takes a con- 
tinual and minute interest in the doings of His creatures.” * 

When.sickness prevails in a village of Kitui, the head- 
man consults a diviner, who may declare that the spirit 
(zmeu) of some dead person is troubling the people and must 
be appeased. To effect this desirable end, the headman 
walks round the village with some ashes in his right hand 
and a fowl in his left ; on reaching a point opposite the gate 
of the village he releases the fowl and lets it fly inside. 
Then the bird is caught again, its throat is cut, and the 
knife is afterwards buried in the cattle pen. The children 
of the village eat the flesh of the fowl. Thereupon the 
headman prays to Engai, begging him to remove the sickness 
and keep it from the village. Afterwards he prays to the 
spirit (zz) of the dead person who is suppesed to have 
brought the sickness. They say that they pray to Engai 
first because the spirit of the dead man has gone to him. 
The spirits of the dead. which chiefly afflict villages are those 
of deceased medicine-men who in their lifetime were believed 
to communicate with Engai in their dreams.” 

Sometimes a goat instead of a fowl is amplored to ward 
off sickness from a village. In that case the proceedings 
are as follows. The evening before the ceremony the head- 
man puts a stone in the fire of the hut and leaves it there 
all night. Next morning he calls a small boy and girl, and 
the boy leads a he-goat round the outside of the village, 
followed by the girl. For the success of the ceremony it is 
essential that the goat should be all of one colour; a 
speckled goat would be useless. When the procession 
reaches the gate of the village, the headman takes half a 
gourd of water and places it on the goat’s head between the 
horns. The stone is now fetched from the glowing embers 
of the fire in the hut; by this time the stone is red hot, and 
when it is dropped into the bowl on the goat’s. head it fizzes 
and causes the water to boil and give off steam. A hole is 


1 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 2 C, W. Hobley, Bantu. Beliefs and 
Magic, p. 249. Magic, p. 138. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA § 253 


next dug at the door of the headman’s hut; the headman 
himself holds the stone over the hole and prays saying, “O 
Kngai, I do not wish to see the sickness enter my village, 
so now I bury this stone and bury the sickness with it”. 
The goat is not killed, but allowed to go free, so that it is a 
little hard to see what part it takes in staving off the 
sickness. Apparently in this respect the chief reliance is 
placed on the fizzing hot stone, which, if it does not actually 
kill the sickness with which it is buried, may at least be 
thought to act as a powerful deterrent on his imagination in 
case he should meditate a fresh assault on the village.’ 

While we are told that Engai or Mulungu is vaguely Engai lives 
supposed to live in the sky,’ it is also sometimes said that ret 
he dwells in the high mountains, inhabiting, for example, the high _ 
lofty Mount Kenya, which, though it rises only half a™°"*™ 
degree south of the equator, is sheathed in glaciers for a 
perpendicular height of about four thousand feet.* So 
stupendous a mountain, towering far beyond the limits of 
perpetual snow, might well be deemed the home of an 
African Sky-god. 

Other indications of the celestial abode of Engai are his Engai 
association with the rain, with shooting stars, and with Sane 
eclipses. The Akamba emphatically affirm that it is Engai, shooting 
and not the ancestral spirits (azzmz), who sends the rain.” Hat Suu 
When a shooting star appears to fall on a sacred place 
(zthembo), they think that Engai has descended to the shrine 
to ask for food ; so to appease his hunger they take various 
kinds of food to the spot or even sacrifice an animal.® 
Again, eclipses are said to be wrought by the high god 
Engai and to be an omen of sickness in the land. Accord- 
ingly, at an eclipse the headman of each village has to take 
two children and a goat. The goat is led round the outside 
of_the village, and when it reaches the gate, an elder cuts a 
piece out of one of its ears and lets the animal return to the 


eclipses. 


1 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 4 W. J. Sollas, Primitive Hunters, 
Magic, pp. 139 sq. Third Edition (London, 1924), pp. 

2C. W. Hobley, Zthnology of 16 sa. : 
A-Kamba and other East Afrtcan 
Tribes, p. 85; compare G. Lindblom, 
The Akamba, p. 244. - 

3 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 6 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
Magic, p. 63. Magic, p. 64. 


5 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
Magic, p. 63. 


The first 
parents 
thrown 
down by 
Mulungu., 


Engai or 
Mulungu 
associated 
with sacred 
fig trees. 


254 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


village. Then they smear white earth on the face, the 
stomach, and along the back of the goat to its tail. This 
remedy for an eclipse has never yet been known to fail ; 
invariably, after the whitening of the goat, the sun or the 
moon regains its former radiance. 

Yet another indication of the abode of the deity in the 
sky is the legend that the first parents of the existing tribes 
were thrown down by Mulungu from the clouds, bringing 
with them a cow, a goat, and a sheep. The very place where 
they fell and built the first village is still pointed out. 
However, according to another and equally probable account, 
Engai produced the first man, the ancestor of the human 
race, out of an ant-hill by the sea. Hence the Kamba 
Adam is known as “ He who came out of the earth”. 

A very notable feature in the Kamba religion is the 
association of Engai or Mulungu with sacred trees; for 
almost always, as we have seen, his holy places are at sacred 
fig trees of a particular species.* | The way in which any 
fig tree came to be regarded as sacred and so to form the 
centre of a holy place, is said to have been as follows. In 
any particular village, long ago, there would be a woman | 
who enjoyed a high reputation 2s a prophetess or seer, 
inasmuch as her prophecies always came true. At her death 
she would be buried in the village, and after her death her 
Spirit (zz) would take possession of another woman of the 
same village, who, thus inspired, would speak in the name of 
the dead prophetess, saying, “I cannot stay here, I am called 
by Engai, and I go to live at a certain tree”, which she 
would name. The tree thus designated became holy hence- 
forth. Four elders and four old women would then be 
chosen to go and consecrate it. They took with them earth 
from the grave of the prophetess, and one of them, a relation 
of the deceased, would take a goat. Arrived at the tree, 
they deposited the earth from the grave at its foot and, led 
the goat thrice round the trunk; the goat was then sacrificed, 
and the delegates prayed, or rather addressed the spirit of 
the dead prophetess, saying, “We have brought you to the 


1 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 3 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
Magic, p. 259. Magic, p. 26. 
2 G. Lindblom, Zhe Akaméba, p. 252. 4 Above, p. 248. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN. AFRICA 255 


tree you desire”. After that a small hut was built on the 
spot. From time to time it is usually rebuilt before a great 
ceremony takes place at the tree. The elders who build the 
hut must have their heads shaved next morning, but they 
are obliged to shave one another, no one else is permitted to 
discharge that holy office. The shorn locks are then hidden, 
probably to prevent an enemy from bewitching them by 
means of the clippings." | 

However, this explanation of the origin of a sacred place 
would apply to the foundation of shrines sacred to ancestral 
spirits as well as to Engai or Mulungu; indeed, it appears 
to hold good especially of the shrines of ancestral spirits, 
since it is the spirit of a dead woman who is supposed to 
have been mainly instrumental in instituting the sanctuary. 

The association of the Sky-god Engai or Mulungu with Association 
a species of fig tree reminds us of the association of the meee 
Greek and Roman Sky-gods, Zeus and Jupiter, with the oak. species of 
But why a fig tree should be chosen for the honour does not "°* 
appear. The reason for associating the oak with the Sky- 
gods Zeus and Jupiter probably is that in Europe the oak 
is oftener blasted by lightning from heaven than any other 
tree of the forest.” The ancients themselves would seem to 
have observed this curious fact; for Aristophanes puts into 
the mouth of Socrates the remark that Zeus strikes his own 
temples and the great oaks with his thunderbolts.’ Can it 
be that in East Africa the sacred fig trees belong to a 
species which is often the target of heaven’s artillery ? 

Like so many other African peoples the Akamba believe Story of the 
that God originally designed to endow men with the gift of Si aed 
immortality, or at all events with the almost equally valu- Engai, the 
able property of rising from the dead after a brief interval, Ba aed 
but that this benevolent intention was frustrated through meleo. 
the fault of one of the animals whom the Creator had sent 
to bear the glad tidings to his creatures. In the Kamba ver- 
sions of the myth the two messengers are a chameleon and 
a bird, which is variously described as a thrush and a weaver- 
bird. In one version the two creatures are accompanied 


1C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 2 The Golden Bough, Part VII., 
Magic, pp. 61 sq. Balder the Beautiful, ii. 298 sqq. 
3 Aristophanes, Clouds, 401 sg. 


256 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


on their mission by a frog, but he plays no active part 
in the story, which runs thus. Once upon a time there 
were a frog, a chameleon, and a bird called 7toroko, which 
is said to be a small bird of the thrush tribe (Cossypha 
zmolaens), with a black head, bluish-black back, and a buff- 
coloured breast. These three were sent by Engai, that is, 
by God, to search for human beings who died one day and 
came to life again the next. In those days the chameleon 
was a very important personage, so he led the way. Pres- 
ently he spied some people lying like dead; so, while the 
three approached the seeming corpses, the chameleon called 
out to them softly, “ WVzwe, niwe, nzwe”. But the thrush 
was vexed with the chameleon and asked what he was 
making that noise for. The chameleon replied, “I am only 
calling the people who go forward and then come back”, by 
which he meant people who die and come to life again. 
But the sceptical thrush derisively declared it to be clean 
impossible to find people who ever came back to life. 
The chameleon, however, stuck to it that the thing was 
possible, and added by way of illustration, “Do not I go 
forward and back?” alluding to the way the chameleon 
lurches backwards and forwards before he takes a step. By 
this time the three messengers had. come up to the spot 
where the dead people were lying, and in response to the 
call of the chameleon sure enough the corpses opened their 
eyes and listened to him. But the thrush cried out to them, 
“You are dead to this world and must stay where you are. 
You cannot rise to life again.” | Having delivered this dis- 
couraging message the thrush flew away. But the frog and 
the chameleon stayed behind. The chameleon now took up 
his parable again and addressed the dead in these words: 
“T was sent by Engai to wake you up; do not believe the 
words of the thrush, he only tells you lies”. But the spell 
of his power was now broken: his exhortations were-of no 
avail: the dead turned a deaf ear to them and either could 
not or would not come to life. So the chameleon and 
the frog returned to Engai, and the deity questioned the 
chameleon as to the result of his mission. He said, “ Did 
you go?” The chameleon said, “Yes”. The deity then 
asked, “ Did you find the people?” “ Yes, I did,’ answered 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 257 


the chameleon. ‘“ What did you say?” inquired the deity. 
The chameleon replied, “I called out Mwe, niwe, niwe. 
I spoke very gently, but the thrush interrupted me and 
drowned my voice, so the dead people only listened to what 
he said.” Engai then turned to the thrush and asked 
whether that was so, whereupon the thrush stated that the 
chameleon so bungled his message that he, the thrush, felt 
morally bound to interrupt him. Engai believed the story 
of the thrush, and, being very vexed at the way in which the 
chameleon had executed his commands, he reduced that 
animal from his high estate, and ordained that ever after 
he should only be able to walk very, very slowly, and 
that he should never have any teeth. But he took the 
thrush into high favour, and commissioned him to wake up 
the inhabitants of the world every morning, and that duty 
the thrush discharges punctually down to this day; for he 
begins to sing every morning at 2 A.M. when all other 
birds are still fast asleep.’ 

In a shorter Kamba version of the story the kindly in- 
tention of the deity is more plainly expressed, but on the 
other hand he is taxed with a change of purpose which 
bespeaks a certain vacillation or fickleness of character. 
The story runs as follows : 

When Mulungu created man, he resolved to endow him 
with immortality. Now he knew the chameleon to be a 
very trustworthy animal, slow but sure; so he chose him to 
carry the message of immortality to the children of men. 
So the chameleon set off, but his duty sat very lightly on 
him, and he stopped now and then to catch flies. - At last, 
however, he arrived at mankind, and opening his mouth 
proceeded to deliver his message of immortality. But 
unfortunately he was afflicted with an impediment in his 
speech, and when he attempted to speak he got no further 
in his message than this, “I have been commissioned to—I 
have been commissioned to——-~”. Here the deity grew 
impatient ; he had now changed his mind and decided that 
man should die, “like the roots of the aloe”. The swift- 


1C. W. Hobley, Ethnology of cited this version elsewhere (Fo/h-/ore 
A-Kamba and other East African in the Old Testament, i. 60-62). 
Tribes, pp. 107 sg. I have already 


VOL. I ee S 


Another 
version of 
the story of 
the Origin 
of Death ; 
Mulungu, 
the bird, 
and the 
chameleon, 


The 
Akikuyu 
and their 
country. 


258 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


flying weaver-bird was accordingly despatched post haste 
with the new, the fatal message, and he arrived while the 
chameleon still stood stuttering and stammering, “I—I—I 
have b-b-been co-co-co-com-missioned to—to—to % 
But before he could spit it all out, the bird cut in and 
delivered his message of death. That is why all men are 
mortal down to this day.’ 





To the north and north-west of the Akamba dwells 
another and perhaps kindred Bantu tribe called the Akikuyu. 
They inhabit a highland country which, though it lies nearly 
under the equator, enjoys a temperate and perfectly healthy 
climate on account of its great elevation above the ocean. 
It is a vast expanse of hills in the form of ridges, which, 
seen from a height, present the appearance of the billows 
of a troubled and tossing sea receding, wave beyond wave, 
into the distance, till they break at the foot of the lofty 
mountains that bound the horizon on nearly every side. 
These rolling downs would seem to have been once clothed 
with a dense forest of giant trees and impenetrable jungle ;_ 
but now only a few patches of virgin forest, where the axe 
of the woodman has spared the sacred groves of the sylvan 
gods, add here and there a touch of verdure to the 
bleakness and bareness of the scenery. Yet is its monotony 
relieved by the view of the great mountains in the near or 
farther distance, above all by the sight of the magnificent 
mass of Mount Kenya rearing its mighty top, crowned with 
eternal glaciers and perpetual snow, far up into the blue 
vault of heaven. The prospect of it, at all times impressive, 
is perhaps most striking at early morning or towards 
evening, when clouds veil the: lower slopes and the summit 
is bathed in the purple mist of dawn or lit up by the 
gorgeous hues of sunset. The glorious mountain dominates 
like an Olympus the landscape for miles and miles. No 
wonder that the Akikuyu place the home of their god on 
Mount Kenya.’ 


1 G, Lindblom, Zhe Akaméa, p.253. fine climate of the country, see P, 
“2 W. S. Routledge and K. Rout- Cayzac, ‘La Religion des Kikuyu 
edge, With a Prehistoric People, the (Afrique Orientale)”, Anthropos, v. 
Akikuya of British East Africa (1910) p. 310, 

(London, 1910), pp. 1 sg. As to the 





Vv WORSHIP OF TIHTE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 259 


Like their kinsfolk the Akamba, they call their deity Engai or 
indifferently Engai (Ngai) or Mulungu (Molungu),! and their cea 
notions of him seem to be equally vague and floating, far god of the 
indeed from being crystallized into the hard lines and Feber 
inflexible shapes of a dogmatic theological system. Yet 
they regard him as the master of all, the being without 
whose permission neither good nor evil can happen to 
men. They offer many sacrifices to him, sometimes the 
first-fruits of the crops, but most commonly a sheep. The 
sacrifice is public and solemn, and it takes place at the foot 
of a sacred tree; for, like the Akamba, the Akikuyu regularly 
associate the reverence for sacred trees with the worship of 
the Supreme God. The aim of the sacrifice is to obtain 
some benefit, such as rain, from the deity. It is offered 
exclusively by the elders of a district. Women and children 
take no part in it. On the other hand, in the numerous 
sacrifices which they offer to the spirits of the dead 
(ngoma) the whole of the family, down to the little children, 
must participate.” 

Among the Akikuyu the Supreme God seems to be The wild 
known as Engai (Ngai) more commonly than as Mulungu. 2&"°" 
His sacred tree, as among the Akamba, is a species of fig, Engai. 
the great wild fig-tree (A7zcus capenuszs), which the natives call 
mugumu or mutz wa Engat. Dotted about the country are 
numbers of these sacred trees, many of which were formerly 
sacred shrines or places of sacrifice to Engai from time 
immemorial. No beast or bird may be killed cr shot in a 
sacred tree, and if any impious person cuts off a branch or 
makes an incision in the trunk, dire results are’ believed to 
ensue. The elders oblige the sinner to pay a fine of a ram 
and a he-goat, and the animals are sacrificed at the tree. 

The elders apply a strip of the skin of one of the victims to 
the cut in the tree to heal the wound, and they anoint it 

1 PP, Cayzac, ‘'La. Religion des  /rstetute, xxxiv. (1904) pp. 263 s¢.; 
Kikuyu (Afrique Orientale)”, Arthro- W.S. Routledge and K. Routledge, 
pes, Vv. (1910) pp. 309 s¢. With a Prehistoric People, pp. 225 


2 Pp. Cayzac, ‘*La Religion des sgg.; C. W. Hobley, Bamtu Beliefs 
Kikuyu (Afrique Orientale)”, dxzthro- and Magic, pp. 40 sg¢. 
pos, V- (1910) pp. 309 sg. 

3-H. R. Tate, ‘‘ Further Notes on 4 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
the Kikuyu tribe of British East Magic, p. 40; H. R. Tate, of. cet, 
Africa”, Journal of the Anthropological p. 263. 


Sacrifices 
offered by 
the 
Akikuyu 
at the 
sacred 
trees, 


260 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


with the fat and the contents of the stomach. Moreover, 
the breast of the ram is cut off and hung in the tree; but 
the remainder of the carcase and the whole of the goat are 
eaten by the elders.’ | 

Sacrifices are offered at the sacred trees to procure rain, 
to obtain relief from famine, and to check the progress of an 
epidemic.” On the day when a sacrifice is offered for rain, 
no one may touch the earth with iron; a sword or spear may 
not so much as be rested on the ground, else the Akikuyu 
believe that the sacrifice would be in vain. Nay on such a 
day, an elder may not even strike his staff into the ground 
in the usual way.’ Apparently the notion is that earth 
should not be wounded at the moment when she is about 
to be fertilized by rain from heaven. The victim offered is 
regularly aram. One year it may bea black ram; but if 
in that particular year the seasons chance to be unfavour- 
able, the Akikuyu conclude that the deity is displeased and 
therefore change the colour of the victim to red or white. 
When the ram is brought to the sacred tree, one of the 
elders lifts up the animal so that it stands on its hind legs 
facing the tree. A gourd of honey and another of beer, 
brewed from sugar-cane, are then ‘poured out at the foot of 
the tree, and the elders call out, “ We pray to God (Engai), 
we Sacrifice a goat, we offer all things”. It is curious that 
the elders should thus say that they are sacrificing a goat, 
when the victim is really a ram. The victim is then 
suffocated and its throat pierced with the sacrificial knife. 
The flowing blood is collected in a gourd and poured out at 
the foot of the sacred tree. The right half of the carcase is 
then skinned and removed, while the left half, wrapped in 
the skin, is deposited at the foot of the tree and left there. 
This portion is believed to be eaten by a hyena or wild cat 
which is moved to do so by the deity. The remainder of 
the flesh is cooked and eaten by the elders on the spot. -In 
olden times the fire on which the sacrificial meat is roasted 
was always supposed to be kindled with new fire made by 
the friction of wood, but nowadays a firebrand is often brought 


f C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, pp. 45 sq. 
Magic, p. 41. 3 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 


* C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, p. 47. 


a 


Vv WOKE OF Ti7E SKYsIN BASTERN APRICA - 261 


from a village. None of the meat may be taken back to the 
village. The bones of the portion of the sacrificial ram eaten 

by the elders are each broken into two parts and deposited 

at the foot of the tree: the marrow is not extracted. After 
partaking of the sacrificial meal, the elders retire to a little 
distance and chant these words: “We elders pray God Prayer to 
(Engai) to give us rain”. The night before and the night Ps for 
after the sacrifice the elders must observe strict chastity. A 
breach of the rule by any person present at the ceremony is 
believed to render the sacrifice ineffectual. No elder whose 

father is alive may attend the ceremony.’ 

Every year, when the maize is just sprouting, the elders Sacrifice at 
summon the chief medicine-men and repair with them to the (Ted 
sacred tree to offer sacrifice. One of the medicine-men pours the maize 
“medicine” into the mouth of the sacrificial ram before it is °"P°"'"S 
killed, and he pours it also on the fire on which the meat is 
roasted. The bones of the victim are then burned in the 
fire, that the smoke of them may ascend into the tree and 
be well-pleasing to the deity among the branches. The 
flowing blood is caught in a half-gourd and placed in the 
horn of an ox. Half of it is poured out at the foot of the 
sacred tree; the other half is mixed with pieces of intestinal 
fat and put in the large intestine of the sacrificial ram. This 
large intestine, with the blood and fat in it, is next roasted 
over the fire and eaten by the senior elders.” 

Near the time of harvest, when the crops are ripe, but Sacrifice at 
before they are reaped, the elders take a ram to the sacred (he sre 
place and slaughter it. They pour the blood at the foot of harvest. 
the tree and pray, “O God (Engai), we have to bring meat 
so that we may not fall ill, for we have good crops and are 
glad”.? The elders then eat the meat. After the feast, they 
take the contents of the stomach of the sacrificial ram and 
sprinkle them over the ripe crops and also over the large 
wicker bottles and large gourds in which grain is stored. It 
is believed that if the elders failed to do this, the people 
would suffer greatly from diarrhoea.’ 

Besides the sacred trees at the communal places of 


1 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 3-C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
Magic, pp. 42-45. Magic, p. 46. 

2 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Belie/s and 4 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 
Magic, p. 46. Magic, pp. 46 sg. 


Private 
sacrifices 
at sacred 
trees, 


The sacred 
places of 
Engai are 
sanctuaries 
where 
criminals 
and foes 
can take 
refuge. 


262 WORSHIP) OF THE SK YAIN ALRICA CHAP. 


sacrifice, the head of a village usually has a private sacred 
tree of his own, at which he sacrifices to the deity for good 
fortune or for help in time of trouble. Women are not 
allowed to attend a sacrifice to the deity at one of the 
regular sacred trees; but at a private sacrifice for good 
fortune, performed at a sacred tree belonging to a particular 
village, the village elders attend with their wives and children, 
their cattle, sheep, and goats. However, even then the women 
and children may not come near the tree, but must remain 
a little way off. When the sacrificial ram has been killed, 
the fat of the victim is smeared on the whole family as well 
as on the flocks and herds. The party then returns home, 
uttering the usual African cry of joy. After a private sacrifice 
the skin of the slain ram is carried back to the village and 
presented to the elder’s chief wife, but this is never done 
after a public or communal sacrifice. The night before the 
sacrifice the elders must observe continence. On the morning 
after a private sacrifice the wives go to the sacred tree and 
deposit there offerings of grain, bananas, and other things. 
Two days after a private sacrifice a ceremonial drinking of 
beer takes place at: the village, men and women drinking 
apart. - During the ceremony they pray to the deity, saying, 
“We pray thee; O God (Engai), that you will give us all 
things, children, goats, and cattle”. 

The sacred places of Engai serve as sanctuaries. Ifa 
murderer or other criminal can escape to one of them and 
touch the sacred tree, he is safe from the vengeance of his 
pursuers. He cannot, of course, stay indefinitely at the tree, 
or he would soon die of hunger, but the elders come and 
take him away under safe conduct. His clansmen must go to 
the sacred tree and sacrifice a ram, which they are supposed 
to offer in exchange for him. The contents of the stomach 
of the victim are smeared on the body of the murderer, and 


' a senior elder draws a line of white earth on his face’ from 


the forehead to the tip of his nose. The criminal is now 

ceremonially clean and may return to his family ; until the 

purification had been accomplished, he might not enter the 

village. All the flesh of the ram is eaten by the elders; 

none is left at the tree. But some of the contents of the 
1 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Magic, pp. 48-50. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA . 263 


victim’s stomach are sprinkled at the foot of the tree to 
cleanse the spot where the criminal stood. In war, if an 
enemy succeeded in taking sanctuary at a sacred tree, he 
might not be slain there, but he would probably be seized 
and killed at some distance from the holy spot.’ 

The Akikuyu, as we have seen, offer many sacrifices to Sacrifices 
the ancestral spirits (xgoma) as well as to God (Engai). nered by 
Indeed, they attribute the ordinary ills of life to the agency Akikuyu 
of the ancestral spirits, who have to be propitiated accord- pais 
ingly.” But the sacrifices to the ancestral spirits are never spirits. 
offered at the sacred trees; they always take place in the 
village, close to the village shrine. The victim sacrificed is 
regularly a ram, The portions of its flesh which are eaten 
are roasted on a fire, which was formerly kindled on the 
spot by the friction of wood. Nowadays the fire is supposed 
to be brought from a village. An elder usually sacrifices a 
ram every three months or so at the grave of his father. He 
pours blood, fat, and beer on the grave, and leaves the ram- 
skin there. Sacrifices to the ancestral spirits must take place 
before sunrise, probably because the spirits are supposed to 
be on the prowl by night but to retire during the day. If 
on the occasion of a sacrifice at the sacred tree the elders 
chance to see a snake, they say that it is an ancestral 
spirit (zgoma) and try to pour a little of the blood from 
the sacrificed ram on the head, back, and tail of the reptile.® 


Bordering on the territory of the Akamba and _ the Primitive 
Akikuyu are some small tribes who inhabit a rugged and (75°) 
not very accessible country on the south-eastern slopes of the eastern 
mighty Mount Kenya. Here the declivities of the mountain avec 
are still to a great extent clothed with dense virgin forest, Kenya. 
which is, however, slowly retreating before the encroachments 
of man. Here the rivers flow in deep rocky gorges, their 
heavily-timbered sides swept in the wet season by torrents 
of rain which render the paths across them, difficult at 


all times, then doubly precarious. On the ridges, parted 


1 C. W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and Kikuyu (Afrique Orientale) ”, Anthro- 


Magic, pp. 47 sq. pos, V. (1910) p. 310. 
2 W. S. Routledge and K, Rout- 
ledge, With a Prehistoric People, p. 3 C, W. Hobley, Bantu Beliefs and 


227; P. Cayzac, ‘‘La Religion des A/agic, pp. 50 5g. 


The Chuka, 


The two 
physical 
types, 


The clans 
and their 
mode of 
life, 


264 WORSHIP. OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


from each other by these profound and sometimes almost 
impassable ravines, dwell isolated communities, which, 
secluded in the fastnesses of their wild highlands, have clung 
to their ancient modes of life and thought, while their 
neighbours in the lowlands have succumbed more or less to 
that restless tide of change, which even in Africa may be 
traced setting silently but surely in the direction of progress, 
wherever nature has not opposed insuperable obstacles to its 
current. Altogether these mountaineers on the rugged 
slopes of the great extinct volcano remained very little 
affected by foreign influence down to the beginning of the 
twentieth century.’ 

Among them, the most typical are the Chuka, who 
claim to have inhabited the country from time immemorial, 
though they tell of a race of hairy dwarfs who once dwelt 
in the depths of the forest, practising no kind of agriculture, 
and subsisting solely by the chase and by bee-keeping, while 
they lodged in burrows dug out of the ground and roofed 
over to keep out the rain” The Chuka themselves are 
apparently the nucleus out of which other less pure tribes 
in their neighbourhood have been formed by admixture of 
foreign elements on the north and west.’ Physically they 
are rather more thickset and muscular and decidedly darker 
in hue than their neighbours; their eyes are of the warm brown 
colour characteristic of the negro. Yet two distinct types of © 
face occur in about equal proportions among them. One, 
which may be called the Bushman type, is marked by 
prominent cheek-bones, lumpy forehead, heavy jaws, and 
matted hair and beard. The other is a sort of Mongolian 
type, with narrow eyes, high cheek-bones, wide mouth, and 
slanting forehead.* All the tribes are divided into clans 
which are exogamous, marriage within the clan being 
regarded as incest. Descent of the clan is hereditary in the 
male line. Traces of totemism appear to exist in the special 
relation of various animals and insects to certain clans, 


1 Major G. St. J. Orde Browne, dwarfs is Agumbe, though the name 
The Vanishing Tribes of Kenya Asi also occurs as an alternative. 
(London, 1925), pp. 17-25, 39. 3G. St. J. Orde Browne, Z%e 

Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 25-27, 

2°G,. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 42. 

Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 20 sq. 4G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 
‘The name commonly applied to these Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 42-44. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 265 


which use them as signs or badges.’ The people subsist 
mainly on maize, beans, and millet, which they cultivate in 
the usual wasteful fashion by clearing patches in the forest, 
sowing them for a few years, and then suffering them to 
relapse into the wilderness.: The men fell the trees, grub up 
the roots and bushes, and remove the stones, the women sow 
the seed and reap the crops.” Some of the tribes keep a 
few cattle, the milk and flesh of which form part of their 
diet.2 But nobody will drink milk and. eat flesh at the 
same time ; strictly speaking, three months ought to elapse 
between a draught of milk and a meal of meat, but in 
practice the eater or drinker is allowed to purify himself by 
eating a small bitter berry that grows on a large tree, thus 
preparing his body for a change of diet. The motive for not 
allowing milk to come into contact with meat in the stomach 
is a fear lest such contact should harm, not the eater, but the 
cow that gave the milk; for the natives believe that she and 
her calf would break .out in spots as a consequence of any 
breach of the rule* The people also keep goats, which 
they slaughter both for food and in a variety of ceremonies, 
though they do not drink the milk.2 Of the ceremonies 
in which the goat figures as a victim the most curious 
perhaps is one performed at the birth of a child; 
it consists apparently in a pretence that the infant has 
been born from a goat instead of from its human mother. 
A goat having been killed, its skin is spread on the legs of 
the child’s mother; the baby is wrapped in it, and then 
snatched from the skin by old women, who in doing so utter 
the trilling cry which is usual at the birth of a child. 
Sometimes the intestine of a goat is tied round the mother’s 
waist and is cut at the moment when the child is lifted out 
of the goatskin, apparently in imitation of the severance 
of the navel string.° A similar ceremony is performed on 
boys before circumcision among the Akikuyu.’ Other 


1G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe eG. St. The 
Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, p. 119. 
6G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 
Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 82 sq. 
7 W. Scoresby Routledge and Kath- 
leen Routledge, With a Prehistoric 
People, the Aktkuyu of British East 
Africa, pp. 151-153. Compare C, 


Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, p. 39. 
2G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 
Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 66 sg. 
$G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 
Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 117 sg. 
4G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 
- Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, p. 100. 


J. Orde Browne, 


Meat not 
eaten with 
milk. 


The 
ceremony 
of birth 
froma 
goat. 


266 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


Scrupu- occasions which require the slaughter of a goat are 
losity as to . . : : . 
ceremonial PUrificatory rites intended to rid persons of ceremonial 
cleanness. uncleanness (¢hahu), which they are supposed to have 
contracted through a great variety of causes.’ 
Vague But while the whole social life of these wild tribes is 
heen permeated by a scrupulosity as to ceremonial cleanness 
ina Creator which reminds us of the Pharisees, they are said to have very 
Saat little religion, and in particular, unlike most African tribes, 
to have no idea of a life after death. Yet they certainly 
believe vaguely in a Creator, and the snowy cap of Mount 
Kenya appears to be generally regarded as his home; thus 
in the course of his incantations a wizard will address the 
holy mountain and pray for the divine approbation of the 
undertaking he has in hand. The name universally applied 
to the deity is the Masai word Engai. However, they seem 
to have very little idea of any definite control exerted by 
Engai over the affairs of ordinary life. Their theology may 
accordingly be described as a vague theism, the belief in 
a great First Cause, whose will may perhaps be thought 
to work automatically in the social laws of uncleanness, 
purification, and so on.” 
How men Yet, like so many of the simple folks of Africa, these 
deprived of S2Vages have meditated on the eternal problem of human 
pepe mortality and have found what perhaps they regard as a 
mortality ; Satisfactory solution of it. They say that long, long ago the 
the Sun, Sun desired that all men should rise from the dead. To 
the mole, 3 : : : ie 5 
andthe give effect to this kindly wish he prepared a medicine which 
hyena. had the marvellous property of bringing the dead to life, if 
it were only smeared on their lips. This priceless drug. he 
committed to the care of a mole with instructions to dis- 
tribute it broadcast among mankind; and he chose the mole 
as his messenger because in those far-off days the mole was a 
beast that ran about on the surface of the ground. So off 
the mole set on the journey with the precious packet in his 
hand. On the way he fell in with a hyena, who stopped 
him to ask what errand he was running. In the fulness of 


W. Hobley, '* Kikuyu Customs and  Zestament, ii. 7 sqq. 


Beliefs,” Journal of the R. Anthropo- 1G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 
logical Institute, xl. (1910) pp. 440 Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 181 sg. 
sgg.; td., Bantu Beliefs and Magic, 2G. St. J. Orde Browne, Zhe 


pp. 77-79; ‘olk-lore im the Old Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 205 sg. 


Vv WOURSZIIAOT SHE SRYALN BASTERNGAFRICA ‘267 


his heart the mole confided to him the great secret and 
showed him the little packet that. was to make all men 
immortal. At the news the hyena was struck with con- 
sternation, “ For what,” said he, “am I to eat if there are 
no more nice fresh corpses for me to devour?” The bread 
would, so to say, be taken out of his mouth if the mole were 
to deliver the medicine at the correct address. But a 
thought struck him. “Look here,” he said to the mole 
insinuatingly, “ you have always been a friend of mine, so do 
me one favour. Just give me the medicine that the Sun 
gave you, and take this here medicine of mine instead.” 
Now the medicine of the hyena was meant to kill all men 
so that there would be many corpses for him to batten on. 
The mole did not much like the proposal, but being loth to 
disoblige an old friend he swopped medicines with the hyena. 
Then, feeling some qualms, he returned to the Sun and told 
him all that had happened. The Sun fell into a passion 
and upbraided him in very bitter words. “You have lost 
the medicine”, he said, “which I had so much trouble in 
making, and now I cannot make any more. I trusted you 
to take my message, and you have failed. Henceforth you 
shall fear my face and hide when you see me.” The mole 
went away much ashamed, and since that time he has lived 
beneath the earth; if he sees the face of the Sun he dies.’ 


Like the other tribes of East Africa whose beliefs con- bie in a 
° . eme 
cerning Sky-gods and Supreme Beings we have thus far Godamene 


been investigating, the Akikuyu and the Akamba belong to page aie 
the great Bantu family, which, roughly speaking, occupies the fibecar 
whole southern half of Africa from the equator to the Cape aoe 
of Good Hope, with the exception of the comparatively small 

area inhabited by the Hottentots and Bushmen. But in the 

part of Africa that we have now reached, which may be 

said to extend from the head waters of the Nile eastward to 

the Indian Ocean, there are a number of tribes which belong 

to an entirely differént stock and speak entirely different 
languages. As many of them dwell in the valley and along 

the banks of the Upper Nile, they have been classed together, 
appropriately enough, under the general name of Nilotics. 


1G. St. J. Orde Browne, The Vanishing Tribes of Kenya, pp. 216 59. 


The Masai, 


their char- 
acter and 
military 
organiza- 
tion. 


268 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


Racially they are usually assigned to the type known as 
Hamitic. They are tall thin men, with features which are 
not markedly negroid and sometimes resemble what is 
called the Caucasian type.' Among some of these Nilotic 
or Hamitic tribes there prevails a belief in a Supreme God, 
who lives in the sky or at all events in the upper regions of 
the air, and who presents a more or less close analogy to 
the Sky-god or Supreme Being of the other African peoples 
whom we have thus far been considering. Accordingly I shall 
conclude this survey of the worship of Sky-gods in Africa by 
a brief notice of the similar deities worshipped, or at all events 
recognized, by the Nilotic or Hamitic tribes in question. 

Of these tribes the most southerly and probably the 
most famous are the warlike Masai, who inhabit an ex- 
tensive region in Kenya Colony (British East Africa) and 
Tanganyika Territory (German East Africa), to the east of 
Lake Victoria Nyanza, and stretching from the equator to 
about 6° south latitude.” They are, or were down to recent 
years, a race of nomadic herdsmen, devoted to war and the 
care of their cattle and despising the pursuit of agriculture. 
Their martial temper and their elaborate military organization 
long made them the terror of the neighbouring tribes and 
secured for them a predominant position in East Africa. 
Yet they never succeeded in founding a state or polity like 
the kingdoms of Uganda and Unyoro. The reason probably 
was that these fierce warriors never bowed their necks to a 
monarchical yoke. The centre of political gravity was not 
with the chiefs or elders, but with a republic of young men, 
dominated by the spirit of soldierly comradeship and _thirst- 
ing only for military glory. To retire at a mature age from 
the ranks of the warriors and to assume the dignity of chief 
was honourable, but seems to have been looked upon as a 
descent to a lower sphere of activity, a decline from the 
prime of manhood to the threshold of old age. The chiefs 
planned the details of the raids which the warriors desired 
to undertake, but their power of compelling these hotspurs 
to do anything for which they had no liking was slight 
indeed. The nearest approach to a central and supreme 


1 Sir Charles Eliot, in A. C. Hollis, 7he Masaz (Oxford, 1905), pp. xi sg. 
2 Sir Charles Eliot, of. ct. p. xi. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 269 


authority was made by a line of seers or medicine-men who 
exercised much influence over the people in virtue of the divine 
support which they were supposed to enjoy and of the divine 
oracles which they delivered under the inspiring promptings 
of honey-wine. Yet, great as was the power they wielded, 
they seem never to have availed themselves of it as a means 
of establishing a despotism like that of the sultans on the 
neighbouring coast or of the kings on the farther shore of 


the great lake.’ 


A peculiar feature in the character of this turbulent and Pelief of 
warlike people is their piety and their firm faith in a high t' Masai 
in a high 


god whom they name Engai or Ngai.” This, as we have god called 
Engai or 


seen, is the name which the Akamba and the Akikuyu y.°; 
bestow on the same exalted Being, and it is probable that ; 
both peoples borrowed the name from their neighbours the 
Masai.” The Akamba have long been in close, though for 
the most part hostile, contact, with the Masai, of whom they 
formerly lived in great terror;* and the high reputation 
which the Masai acquired by their warlike exploits induced 
many of the surrounding peoples to copy the Masai dress, 
customs, and rules of life The Akikuyu, for example, 
imitate the dress and equipment of Masai warriors, including 
the badges on the Masai shields.’ It would not, therefore, 
be surprising if the Akamba and Akikuyu adopted the name 
of the great God who had so often led their dreaded foes to 


victory. Be that as it may, the Masai seem to repose The Masai 
an implicit faith in the great god Engai, who lives up aloft tink 
themselves 


in the sky, as the Israelites of old did in Jehovah, and like the chosen 
the Israelites they firmly believe themselves to be the chosen poe of 


people of the deity, and consequently they hold that all 


1 Sir Charles Eliot, of. c¢t. pp. xiv- land zur Nilguelle (Berlin, 1894), pp. 
xviii, xx. The fullest accounts of the 156 sgg.; S. L. Hinde and H. Ilinde, 
Masai, their customs, beliefs, and Zhe Last of the Masaz (London, 1901). 
legends, are contained in the German 2-O, Baumann, Durch AMassailand 
work of the late Captain M. Merker, zur Nilguelle, p. 163. 

Die Masai (Berlin, 1904), and in the 3 G. Lindblom, 7ke Akaméba, p.247; 
English work of Mr. A. C. Hollis, W. S. Routledge and K. Routledge, 
The Masai (Oxford, 1905). Compare Wth a Prehistoric People, p, 226. 

J. L. Krapf, Zravels, Researches, and 4C. W. Hobley, Zthnology of 
Missionary Labours duringan Eighteen A-Kamba and other East African 
Years’ Residence *7n Eastern- Afrtea 7 bess PP. 44 59. 
(London, 1860), pp. 358 sgg. ; Joseph 5 C, W. Hobley, £¢thnology of 
Thomson, 7hrough Masailand(London, A-Kamba and other East African 
1885): Oscar Baumann, Durch Massat- = Tribes, p. 132. 


The 

prayers of 
the Masai 
to Engai. 


270 WORSATP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


other nations, whom they brand with the title of Unbelievers 
(el meg) ought of right to be subject to them. In their view 
God made the earth and everything that exists upon it for 
the Masai. Hence when they attack a neighbouring tribe, 
slaughter the men, and carry off their cattle, they are simply 
recovering the property which God had destined for them 
from the creation of the world, and whick their impious 
and unbelieving foes had been most unrighteously with- 
holding from them. Apparently the Masai conceive of 
Engai as an incorporeal being, as a spirit. Certainly they 
make no images or likenesses of him, and they appear not to 
have meditated on his outward form. But the stars which 
twinkle in the nocturnal sky are the eyes of Engai looking 
down from heaven on the slumbering Masai. <A shooting 
star prognosticates the death of somebody, and at sight of it 
the Masai pray that the somebody may not be one of them- 
selves, but an enemy, an unbeliever. The lightning is the 
dreadful glance of Engai’s eye, the thunder is his cry of joy at 
what he has seen. During the long rainy season, when the 
cattle grow sleek, the raindrops are the tears of joy which 
the emotional deity sheds at sight of the fat beeves; and 
during the short rainy season, when the cattle pine for lack 
of pasture, the raindrops are the tears of sorrow wrung from 
the compassionate divinity by the melancholy spectacle. 
Then the Masai seek to allay his sorrow and assuage his 
grief by their prayers. In prayer they stand with uplifted 
hands and invoke the deity. Such prayers they put up 
before every raid and in all the undertakings of life. In 
their uplifted hands they hold bunches of grass, which has 
for them a sacred character, because it is the fodder of the 
cattle on which they depend for their subsistence.’ Altogether, 
the Masai are, or used to be, a most prayerful people. The 
prayers which they put up to Engai were incessant. Nothing 
could be done without hours of howling, whether it was to 
discover where they could best slaughter their enemies or 


1 OQ. Baumann, Durch Aassailand 
sur Nilguelle, p. 163; M. Merker, 
Die Masat, p. 196. As to the re- 
ligious use of grass among the Masai, 
compare Joseph Thomson, 7Zhrough 
Masailand (London, 1885), p. 445; 


A.C. Hollis, 7he AZasat, pp. 288 sgq. ; 
S. L. Hinde and H. Hinde, Zhe Last 
of the Masat, pp. 103 sg. As to the 
term e/ meg, which the Masai apply to 
all people other than Masai, see M. 
Merker, Dze A/asaz, p. 115. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA _ 271 


how they could best ward off disease.’ If only the efficacy 
of prayer were proportioned to its fervour, the Masai ought 
long ago to have overrun the earth. 
The pious motive which prompted the Masai to steal Belief of | 
the cattle of their neighbours was long ago observed and Taeafenaen 


that Engai 

recorded by one of the earliest missionaries who came into gave thei 

contact with these devout and truculent savages. He Sane 

says: “ When cattle fail them they make raids on the tribes las ytaet, 

which they know to be in possession of herds. They say in stealing 

that Engai (Heaven) gave them all that exists in the way (heherds of 
gh- 

of cattle, and that no other nation ought to possess bours they 

any. Wherever there is a herd of cattle, thither it is the peas 

call of the Wakuafi and Masai to proceed and seize it. their own. 

Agreeably with this maxim they undertake expeditions for 

hundreds of leagues to attain their object, and make forays 

into the territories of the Wakamba, the Galla, the Wajagga, 

and even of the Wanika on the sea coast. They are 

dreaded as warriors, laying. all waste with fire and sword, so 

that the weaker tribes do not venture to resist them in 

the open field, but leave them in possession of their herds, 

and seek only to save themselves by the quickest possible 

flight.” * 

The Masai tell a story to explain how God gave them Story told 
cattle, and why the Dorobo, a tribe akin to the Masai, have tha ve 
no cattle and are obliged to support themselves by hunting. hae 
The Dorobo, Andorobo, or Wandorobo, as they are also called, (gngai) 
inhabit forests that stretch from 1° north to 5° south of the Say 
equator.2 The Masai say that when God (Engai) came to cattle inthe 
prepare the world, he found three things in the land, to wit, Yo"'4 
a Dorobo, a serpent, and an elephant. At first all three 
lived amicably together, but in time the Dorobo accused the 
serpent of blowing on him and making his body to itch. 

The serpent replied, “Oh, my father, I do not blow my bad 
breath on you on purpose”. The excuse did not satisfy the 
Dorobo, and that same evening he picked up his club, struck 
the serpent on the head and killed it. Meantime the Dorobo 
had somehow or other obtained a cow and used to take her 

1 Joseph Thomson, 7hrough Mlasat- Eighteen Years’ Residence in Eastern 
land, p. 445. Africa (London, 1860), p. 359. 

2 J. L. Krapf, Zravels, Researches, 3 A.C. Hollis, 74e Nandi (Oxford, 
and Missionary Labours during an 1909), p. 2. 


272 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


out to graze and to drink at the puddles of rain. But the 
elephant contracted a bad habit of wallowing in the puddles 
and stirring up the mud, so that the water was muddy when 
the Dorobo’s cow came to quench her thirst at a puddle. 
So the Dorobo was angry, and made an arrow with which he 
shot and killed the elephant. The daughter of the elephant 
naturally resented the murder of her mother, and in high 
dudgeon went away to another country. ‘The Dorobo is 
bad,” quoth she, “I will not stop with him any longer. He 
first of all killed the snake, and now he has killed mother. I 
will go away and not live with him again.” 

On her arrival at another country the young elephant 
‘met a Masai man, who asked her where she came from. 
The young elephant replied, “I come from the Dorobo’s 
‘kraal. He is living in yonder forest, and he has killed the 
serpent and my mother.” The Masai, to make’sure of the 
facts, inquired, “Is it true that there is a Dorobo there who 
has killed your mother and the serpent?” The reply being 
in the affirmative, he said to the elephant, “ Let us go there. 
I should like to see him.” So they went and found the 
Dorobo’s hut, which God (Engai) had turned upside down, 
so that the door of it looked towards the sky. God then 
called the Dorobo and said to him, “I wish you to come 
to-morrow morning, for I have something to tell you”. The 
Masai man overheard the remark, and next morning he went 
and presented himself to God saying, “I have come”. The 
deity, who was perhaps near-sighted, apparently mistook him 
for the Dorobo whom he had commanded to appear before 
him. At all events he told the Masai man to take an axe 
and to build a big kraal in three days. When it was ready, 
he was to go and search for a thin calf, which he would find 
in the forest. This he was to bring to the kraal and 
slaughter. The meat he was not to eat but to tie up in the 
hide, and the hide he was to fasten outside of the door of the 
hut; then he was to fetch firewood, light a big fire, and 
throw the meat into it. He was afterwards to hide himself 
in the hut, and not to be startled when he heard a great 
noise outside like thunder. 

The Masai man did as he was bid. He searched for a 
calf, and when he found it he slaughtered it and tied up the 


Vv WORSHIP OR THE (SKY AN EASTERN AFRICA (273 


flesh in the hide. Then he fetched firewood, lit a big fire, 
and threw the meat into it. After that he entered the hut, 
leaving the fire burning outside. 

God (Engai) then got to work. He let down a strip of How Goa 
hide from heaven so as to hang just over the calf-skin, and Dona 
immediately cattle began to descend the strip of hide until from 
the whole kraal was full. Indeed, the beasts jostled each '%*" 
other so that they almost broke down the hut in which the 
Masai man lay hid. The Masai man was startled and 
uttered an exclamation of astonishment. Then he went out- 
side of the hut and found that somebody had cut the strip 
of hide, so that no more cattle came down from heaven. 

God asked him whether the cattle that had come down from 
heaven were sufficient, “ For”, said he, “you will receive no 
more because you were surprised”. The Masai man then 
went away and attended to the beasts that had been given 
him. But as for the Dorobo, he lost the cattle because he 
did not present himself before the deity at the critical moment 
-as the Masai did. Hence the Dorobo have had to shoot wild 
beasts for their livelihood down to this day. Indeed, 
according to one version of the tale it was the Dorobo who 
shot away the strip of hide by which the cattle descended 
from heaven. How then could they reasonably expect to 
have any cows? But the Masai, who appeared before God 
at the right time and did his bidding, were given cattle 
by the deity. Hence nowadays, if cattle are seen in the 
possession of Bantu tribes, it is presumed that they have 
been stolen or found, and the Masai say, “These are our 
animals, let us go and take them ; for God (Engai) in olden 
days gave us all the cattle upon the earth”.’ 
However, the religion of the Masai would seem to be far Reliefof the 
. oie : : : . Masai in 

from a pure monotheism, it is even tainted with Manicheism. two gous, 
For according to one of their stories, there are two gods, a fons d 
Black God and a Red God. One day the Black God said peg Goa. 
to the Red God, “Let us give the people some water, for 
they are dying of hunger”. The Red God agreed and told 

1 A.C. Hollis, 7%e Afasaz (Oxford, said to comprise members of all three 
1905), pp. 266-269, 271. TheDorobo _ branches of. the Masai mixed with the 
are called Andorobo or Wandorobo by _ remains of another extinct race which, 


some writers. See A. C. Hollis, of. | according to Merker, was Semitic. See 
cit, p. 28 note?. The Dorobo are M. Merker, Die A/asaz, 221. 


VOL. I iT 


274 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


his colleague to turn on the water. This the Black God 
did, and it rained heavily. After a time the Red God told 
the Black God to stop the water, because rain enough had 
fallen. The Black God, however, was of opinion that the 
people had not had enough, so he refused to turn off the 
water. Both: remained silent after that, and the rain con- 
tinued to pour down steadily till next morning, when the 
Red God again said that enough had fallen. The Black 
God then turned off the water. 

A few days later the Black God proposed that they 
should give the people some more water, because the grass 
was very dry. The Red God, however, was obstinate and 
refused to allow the water to be turned on at any price. 
They argued the point for some time, till at length the Red 
God in a passion, threatened to kill the people, whom he 
said the Black God was spoiling. At that the Black God 
bridled up and said, “I will not allow my people to be 
killed” ; and happily he has been able to protect them, 
for he lives near at hand, whilst the Red God is above 
him. So now when you hear a great crash of thunder in 
the sky, you may know that it is the Red God who is trying 
to come to the earth to kill human beings; but when you 
hear the thunder rolling and rumbling far away, you may 
be sure that it is the Black God saying, “ Leave them alone, 
do not kill them”. 

Masai Hence, if no rain falls, the old men light a bonfire of 
Prayers fF cordia wood and throw a charm into it. Then they encircle 
the fire and sing as follows: 
** Solo. The Black God! ho! 
Chorus. God, water us! 
O the (sc) of the uttermost parts of the earth! 
Solo. The Black God! ho! 
Chorus. God, water us!” ? 

Again, in time of drought Masai women fasten grass to 
their clothes and offer up prayers to God (Engai) for rain.’ 
Children, too, at such times may be called in to assist in 
invoking the aid of Engai. If the drought is prolonged and 
rain is urgently needed, the great chief sends a proclamation 


1A. C. Hollis, Zhe Masaz, pp. 3 A.C. Hollis, Zhe Masat, p. 289. 
264 Sq. For the prayer, see za. p. 347. - 
2 A. C. Hollis, 7he Masaz, p. 348. 


Vv WOR Stile MAES VN EASTERN ALRICA: 278 


to the surrounding villages, requiring that on a given day 
all the children shall assemble and sing for the rain. This 
is done at seven in the evening. The children stand in a 
circle and each child holds a bunch of grass in its hand. 
Meanwhile, the mothers, also holding bunches of grass, 
fling themselves on the ground. No one else takes part 
in this ceremony which is Jie uige an infallible means of 
bringing on rain.' 

When warriors tarry on a foray, their mothers, sisters, Prayer for 

and sweethearts gather outside the huts when the Morning ct 
Star is shining in the sky, and they pray to God (Engai). 
They tie grass to their clothes, and leave milk in their 
gourds, for they say, “Our children will soon -be returning, 
and when they arrive they may be hungry”. When they 
have all assembled they pray as follows: 


‘* Solo. The God (Engai) to whom I pray, and he hears. 
Chorus. The God (Engai) to whom I pray for offspring, 
Solo. I pray the heavenly bodies which have risen. 
Chorus. ‘The God (Engai) to whom I pray for offspring. 
Solfo. Return hither our children. 

Chorus. Return hither our children.” ? 


When a Masai woman has given birth to a child, the Sacrifice 
other women gather and take milk to the mother ; then they pee 
slaughter a sheep, which is called “ The Purifier of the Hut” 
or simply “The Purifier”. They slaughter the animal by 
themselves and they eat all the meat. No man may 
approach the spot where the animal is slaughtered. When 
they have finished their meal, they stand up and sing the 
following song: 


** Solo. My God! my God! (Engai! Engai!) to whom I pray, 

Give me the offspring. 
Who thunders ‘and it rains, 

Chorus. Thee every day only I pray to thee. 

Solo. Morning Star which rises hither, 

Chorus. Thee every day only I pray to thee. 

Solo. He to whom I offer prayer is like sage, 

Chorus. Thee every day only I pray to thee. 


1S. L. Hinde and H. Hinde, 74e It does not contain a mention of 
Last of the Masai, p. 102. The Engai. 
children’s song for rain is recorded aval C. Hollis, Zhe Masat, pp. 
by A. C. Ifollis, Zhe Masaz, p. 349. 350 s¢. 


Athird god, 
Naiteru- 
kop, 
recognized 
by the 
Masai, 


Story of the 
Origin of 
Death : 
God, man, 
and the 
moon. 


WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


Solo. Who is prayed to, and He hears, 
Chorus. Thee every day only I pray to thee.” ! 


Besides the Black God and the Red God the Masai 
recognize the existence of a third god named Naiteru-kop, 
but he is not so great as the Black God. According to one 
story it was he, and not Engai, who let cattle down from 
heaven by a strip of hide for the use of the Masai.” Of this 
minor god is told the sad story which, in different forms, 
has met us among so many African tribes, the story of the 
origin of death. The Masai version of the tale runs thus. 
One day Naiteru-kop told a certain man named. Le-eyo 
that, if a child were to die, he was to say when he threw 
away the body: “Man, die, and come back again; moon, 
die, and remain away”. Soon afterwards a child died, but 


it was not one of Le-eyo’s own children, and when he was 


told to throw it away, he picked it up and said to himself, 
“This child is not mine; when I throw it away I shall say, 
‘Man, die, and remain away ; moon, die, and return’”. So 
he threw it away, and spoke these words, and returned 
home. Next one of his own children died, and when he 
threw it away, he said, “ Man, die, and return ; moon, die, 
and remain away”. But Naiteru-kop said to him, “It is of 
no use now, for you spoilt matters with the other child”. 
That is how it came about that when a man dies he does 
not return, whereas when the moon is finished, it comes 
back again and is always visible to us.° 

Here we have the old story of the kindly god whose 
benevolent intention of endowing man with immortality 
miscarried through the fault of somebody. In this, as in 
some other similar stories, the blame is man’s alone, and the 
gift of eternal life which he forfeited by his misconduct is 
transferred to the moon, which consequently never dies, or, 


1 A. C. Hollis, Zhe A/asaz, pp. in the beginning of time a man named 
345 Sg. Neiterkob, or Neiternkob, on the 
2A. C. Hollis, Zhe Afasat, p.  Oredoinio-eibor (White Mountain, 


270. Compare J. L. Krapf, 7vavels, 


Snow Mountain, the Kegnia of the ~ 


Researches, and Afissionary Labours 
during an Eighteen Years Residence 
7 Lastern Africa (London, 1860), 
p./ 360-¢7** Assto: the Origin -of these 
truculent savages, they have a tradition 
that Engai—Heaven, or Rain—placed 


~ Wakamba) who was a kind of demi- 


god; for he was exalted above men 
and yet not equal to Engai.” 

SA. .C. Holliss) 7heodiasus ee 
271 sg. Compare the Chagga story, 
above, pp. 217 ‘sy. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA — 277 


to speak more correctly, which dies once a month and 
always comes to life again. | 

Finally, it would seem that the primary idea at the root the 
of the Masai god Engai is rather the rain than the blue ate 
vault of heaven. On this point I will quote an instructive Masai god 


passage from the writings of Mr. A. C. Hollis, our best "81's 


: : : é perhaps 
English authority on the Masai and their language. He rather the 
writes: “I have been asked to add a few words on the 72’ ‘han 


the sky. 
subject of exg-Ai, the Masai term for God. Eng-At, ze. AZ Mr. Hollis’s 


with the feminine article prefixed, means literally ‘the rain’, pete y 
and though one occasionally hears other words used as the | 
equivalent of God, eg. Parmasts and ‘Parsai, there is no 
other word for rain. 

“Yo the Masai eng-Ai is of much the same general Re- 

pattern as the sky-god, eg. Zeus, was to the ancients. Joseph ees 
Thomson ' states that their conception of the deity, whom Zeus. 
he called Vgaz, was marvellously vague, and that whatever 
struck them as strange or incomprehensible they at once 
assumed had some connexion with Ngai. Thus, his lamp 
was Ngai, he himself was Ngai, Ngai was in the steaming 
holes, and his house in the eternal snows of Kilima Njaro. 
But Thomson was incorrect. It is conceivable that the 
Masai alluded to him, to his lamp, or to the steaming holes 
as e-ng-Ai or le-’ng-Aj, z.e. of God, as this is the only term 
they have, so far as I am aware, to express anything super- 
natural or sacred. Sickness, grass, the only active volcano in 
Masailand, can all be, and indeed are, referred to as e-’ng-Ai 
or le--ng-Ai, according to the gender of the substantive 
which precedes the expression. ‘God gave us cattle and 
grass, the Masai say, ‘we do not separate the things that 
God has given us.’ Cattle are sacred, and grass is con- 
sequently also sacred, ze. it is of God. The volcano which 
Thomson and others called Donyo Ngai is known to the 
Masai.as Ol-doinyo le-ng-Ai, the Mountain of God, or the 
sacred mountain. I am glad to see that in the newest maps 
the change in orthography has been made. 

“That eng-Ai is personified is apparent from the prayers Engaia 


oe ° : . 3 ersonal 
given in my book,” which are all authentic, as well as in the eset! ane 
hears 
1 Joseph Thomson, 7hrough Masat- 2 The Masat. For the prayers, see prayer. 


land, pp. 444 sg. above, pp. 274 sq. 


The two 
races of 
Kavirondo, 
the Bantu 
and the 
Nilotic. 


278 WORSHTPSOF THE} SKY CIN (AFRICA CHAP. 


forms of blessing and cursing. In one instance, it will be 
remembered, it is said: ‘The God to whom I pray and He 
hears’. 

“ Eng-Ai can also be used to express the sky or heavens, 
but the Masai equivalent for clouds, fog, cold, etc., may also 
be used in this sense. ‘ Heaven’ in the expression ‘ Heaven 
help you’ would be translated by eng-Ai, whilst zzg-atambo, 
the clouds, would be required in a sentence like ‘The 


>” ] 


heavens are overcast ’. 


Kavirondo is a vast territory stretching round the north- 
eastern shores of Lake Victoria Nyanza. It is a rolling 
grass country at an altitude of from 3800 feet to about 
5000 feet above the level of the sea. The climate is fairly 
warm and sunny, yet the rainfall is abundant; the soil is 
well adapted to the agriculture practised by the people.’ 
The country is peopled by two entirely different races, one 
of them belonging to the Bantu and the other to the Nilotic 
family. The Bantu Kavirondo are physically much finer, 
though socially much less developed, than the Baganda.® 
The Nilotic Kavirondo, whose proper name is Jaluo, belong 
to the same family as‘the great Dinka tribe of the Sudan, 
and are near relations of the Aluri and Acholi tribes, which 
live on khoth sides of the Nile near Wadilai, the differences 
being less marked than those which usually distinguish two 
adjoining Bantu tribes. Probably, therefore, the Jaluo 
originally formed one tribe with the Acholi. In appearance 
they are a fine race, not so much remarkable for beauty of 
face as for stature and development.* Though the mornings 
and evenings are comparatively cold in their hills, the Jaluo 
go stark naked ; indeed they object to clothes as indecent, 
and members of the tribe who have been abroad and have 
adopted clothing are requested to put it off during their 
residence in their old homes.” 

1A. C. Hollis, ‘*The Religion 3-C, W. Hobley, Zastern Uganda, 
of the Nandi”, Zyransactions of the p.8 


Third International Congress for the 4G. A. S. Northcote, ‘‘ The Nilotic 
History of Religions (Oxford, 1908),  Kavirondo”, Journal of the R, 


i. 90 sg. Anthropological Institute, xxxvii.(1907) 
° p- 58. 7 
2-C. W. Hobley, Zastern Uganda 5 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, 


(London, 1902), p. 13. Dp: 27-53 


Vv WORDHIPAORGATTEASRYALN LASTIRN AFRICA 279 


Both the Bantu and the Nilotic Kavirondo are reported Belief ofthe 
; , 2 ; Kavirondo 
to believe in a Supreme Being or Creator, to whom, how- ;,, 
ever, they pay no formal worship. On this subject I will Supreme 


y Mates ; Being or 
quote the evidence of a missionary who has lived among the Creator 
people. He says: . called 


: : ; shh Nyasaye, 
“Though entirely different in origin and language the whom they 


religious beliefs of the two races are very similar, differing oh 2 
only in minor points of ritual. Both the Nilotic and the 
Bantu Kavirondo have a distinct idea of God, the Supreme 
Being. The first call him Mysaye (from sayo, to adore), and 
the latter Masaye (from gusaya, to beseech). He is con- 
sidered to be the Creator or originator of all things. It is 
true, the Supreme Being is not adored, but, when a child is 
born, it is ascribed to Nyasaye ; when any one dies, it is 
Nyasaye that has taken him away; and when a warrior 
returns safe from battle, it is Nyasaye that has given him a 
safe return to his home. 

“As, however, no external worship is given to the The 
Creator, it would seem to the ordinary observer, that the pera 
Sun is their principal deity and the Moon their second, Sun and 
whilst the spirits of their forefathers rank as minor spirits. feet ae 
In the early morning the Kavirondo may be seen facing the Saori 
sun. His mode of worship is, to say the least, peculiar. 
He commences by spitting towards the East, in honour of 
the rising orb, then he turns successively to the North, West, 
and South, and salutes each quarter solemnly in the same 
manner, whilst he earnestly beseeches the Sun-god to give 
him good luck. A similar ceremony, if ceremony it can 
be called, is gone through when the new moon appears, in 
order to obtain good speed for that month. But we must 
not lose sight of the fact that though health and good luck 
are asked from the Sun and the New Moon, life itself is 
ascribed to the Creator MVyasaye. In fact it would seem 
that the higher the particular object of reverence is in the 
estimation of the Kavirondo, the less ceremonious is his 
mode of showing his reverence. The Supreme Being, 
the Creator of all things and giver of life and death, has 
to be content with the mere acknowledgement of His 
existence ; the Sun and New Moon receive a_ periodical 
expectoration ; but the spirits of the departed, who are 


J. Roscoe 
on the 
religion of 
the Nilotic 
Kavirondo., 


The Nandi, 
a Hamitic 
or Nilotic 
tribe. 


280 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


really the lowest in rank, are worshipped with an elaborate 
fitival eve 

To much the same effect Mr. John Roscoe has described 
the religion of the Nilotic Kavirondo. He tells us that 
“apart from worship of the dead and belief in ghosts, the 
people have little religion. They call the supreme being 
Nyasi, who, they say, is to be found in large trees. In times 
of trouble or sickness they make offerings to him of an 
animal which is killed under a large tree, and the flesh is 
cooked and eaten near by, though sometimes the meat is 
taken a little distance away and is not eaten under the 
shadow of the tree.” ” 

In these accounts of the Supreme Being of the 
Kavirondo nothing is said to connect him definitely with 
the sky; indeed the statement that he is to be found in 
great trees, where sacrifices are offered to him, would point 
to an arboreal rather than a celestial deity. However, we 
have seen that among the Akamba and Akikuyu the 
worship of Engai or Mulungu, who has some claim to 
rank as a Sky-god, is closely associated with sacred trees,° 
and the same may be true of the Supreme Being of the 
Kavirondo. 


To the north of Kavirondo stretches what is known as 
the Nandi plateau, a highland country which is one of the 
most fertile and beautiful regions of Kenya Colony (British 
East Africa). The tribe, who give their name to it, the 
Nandi, are akin to the Masai, and form one of a group of 
Hamitic or Nilotic tribes to which the Suk and Turkana 
also belong. All these tribes appear to be hybrids, perhaps 


1 N. Stam, ‘‘The Religious Con- the moon. They regard the sun as a 


ceptions of the Kavirondo”, Axthropos, 
v. (1910) p. 360. In one place (the 
first) the writer spells the god’s name 
iWysaye, but elsewhere consistently 
Nyasaye. The latter is probably the 
correct form. With the writer’s ac- 
count of Sun-worship among the 
Kavirondo compare G, A. S. North- 
cote, ‘*The Nilotic Kavirondo”, 
Journal of the R, Anthropological In- 
stztuté, XXxvil, (1907), p..63 >) °C The 
Jaluo religion is extremely slight. They 
worship the sun, and to a less extent 


deity seldom beneficent, more often 
malignant, and usually apathetic; as 
one of them said to the writer, ‘ It 
does not matter how much you pray, 
you fall sick and die just the same’. 
The offerings made at all important 
occasions in their daily life they make 
more with the idea of appeasing him 
than of obtaining positive benefits,” 


2 J. Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu, 
pp. 291 sg. 
3 See above, pp. 248, 259 sg. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 281 


formed by a mixture of Galla or Somali with negro blood ; 
the Galla or Somali element is judged to be stronger in the 
Masai and Nandi than in the Suk and Turkana.’ Together The 
the four tribes make up what we may call the East African yutao 
section of the Nilotic family. The features which distinguish tribes. 
them from their brethren who inhabit the valley of the Nile, 
such as the Bari, Acholi, and Aluru, are that they are more 
or less nomadic herdsmen, and that their young men are 
organized as a special class of warriors. As. a result 
apparently of these institutions, which are perhaps due to 
an infusion of Galla-Somali blood, these tribes of warlike 
herdsmen have spread widely over East Africa. Their kins- 
folk on the Nile, on the other hand, are settled cultivators 
of the soil; and though they fight on occasion and esteem 
bravery, they do not devote the prime of life exclusively to 
raiding their neighbours, nor do they despise peaceful labour. 
The nomadic and military mode of life is most fully 
developed in the Masai, who disdain agriculture and all 
- occupations except fighting and herding cattle. One section 
of the Suk are tillers of the soil; the other section and the 
Turkana do little in the way of cultivation, but tend cattle 
and hunt. The various sections of the Nandi have taken 
to agriculture, seemingly within the last few generations, 
and they practise it in a somewhat desultory fashion.” 

The religious beliefs of the Nandi are somewhat vague Belief of 
and unformulated, but they recognize the existence of aire 
Supreme God whom they call Asis or Asista. His name Supreme 
means the sun. He dwells in the sky: he created man [°° es 
and beast, and the world belongs to him. Prayers are Asista, 
addressed to him. He is acknowledged to be a benefactor “05° 
and the giver of all good things, and offerings are at times means ‘‘the 
made to him in return for his benefits? Besides the high ah 
god’ Asis or Asista the Nandi believe in the existence of Two 
two thunder-gods, the one kindly, the other malevolent, 2%?" 


? gods. 
who closely resemble the Black God and the Red God of” 


1 Sir Charles Eliot, in A. C. Hollis, Zhe Mandi, p. xvii. 
The Masai, pp. xi sgqg.; zd@., in A. C. 3 A.C. Hollis, 7ze Nandi, pp. xix, 
Hollis, Zhe Nandi (Oxford, 1909), 40 sg.; ¢a@., ‘*The Religion of the 
pp. xv sgg.; zd.,in M. W. H. Beech, Nandi”, Zvransactions of the Third 
The Suk (Oxford, 191 I), p Xi. International Congress for the History 
2 Sir Charles Eliot, in A. C. Hollis, of Religions (Oxford, 1908), i. 87. 


282 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


the Masai. The crashing peal of thunder near at hand is 
said to be the bad thunder-god trying to come. to earth to 
kill people, whilst the distant muttering or rumbling of 
thunder is supposed to be the good thunder-god protecting 
mankind and driving away his evil-disposed colleague. 
Forked lightning is said to be the sword of the bad thunder- 
god, while sheet lightning is thought to be the sword of the 
good thunder-god, who does not kill people. Whenever 
forked lightning—the flashing sword of the bad thunder- 
god—is seen, all Nandi women look on the ground, as it is 
deemed wrong that they should witness the havoc which 
the sun or God (Asista) is allowing to take place. During 
a thunderstorm it is usual to throw some tobacco on the 
fire, and the youngest child of a family has to take a certain 
stick, used for cleaning gourds, thrust it into the ashes of 


' the fire, and then throw it out of doors. But the two 


Prayers of 
the Nandi 
to Asista 


thunder-gods are not worshipped, nor are offerings made to 
them." 

The commonest form of prayer is addressed both to the 
great god Asista and to the spirits of deceased ancestors. 


and to dead It is supposed to be recited by all adult Nandi twice a day, 


ancestors. 


Prayers in 
war. 


but it is more particularly used by old men when they rise 
in the morning, especially if they have had a bad dream. 
It runs thus: 
“God, I have prayed to thee, guard my children and cattle, 

I have approached thee morning and evening. 

God, I have prayed to thee whilst thou didst sleep and whilst thou 

wentest. 
God, I have prayed to thee. Do not now say: ‘lam tired’. 
O our spirits, guard us who live on the earth, and do not say: 
‘We were killed by human beings’ ,”* 


When warriors have gone to the wars, the men’s mothers 
tie four knots in their belts,and going out of their huts every 
morning spit towards the sun and say “ God, give us health ”. 
And the fathers of the absent warriors meet together 
regularly, and before they drink their beer they sing, 

‘God guard our children, 
That we may greet them”, 


1 A.C, Hollis, Zhe Nandi, pp. ? A. C. Hollis, “The Religion of 
41, 99. the Nandi”, of. ct. i. 87 sg.; compare 
td,, The Nandi, pp. 41 sg. 


ee ae 


: WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 283 


Then they sprinkle some of the beer on the ground and on 
the walls of the hut, and say, 


**O our spirits, we pray to you. 
Regard this beer, and give us health,” 


If an expedition has been unsuccessful and a number of 
warriors have been killed, the survivors must all go to a 
river on their return and bathe. Then they hold a dance 
at which the women wail and cry at intervals. Afterwards 
an old man stands up amidst the seated warriors and says: 


‘““ God, we admit ourselves beaten, 
We pray thee, give us peace”. 


When cattle have been carried off by an enemy or Prayers for 
killed by lightning, a procession is formed, and the cattle ean 
that have been left are driven to the nearest river, and there 
every animal is sprinkled with water. One old man recites 
these lines, all present repeating them after him: 


“God, guard these that are left, 
We pray thee, guard these that are left”. 


When disease breaks out in a herd, a great bonfire is 
kindled and the sick herd is driven to the fire. A pregnant 
sheep is killed and eaten, and the herd is driven round the 
fire, each beast being sprinkled with milk, whilst the 
following prayer is offered up: 


“God, we pray thee, 
Guard these that are here’ 


While the eleusine grain is ripening, and after the grain Prayers at 
has been reaped, the harvest ceremonies are held. Porridge “Y°* 
is made from the first basketful of grain cut, and all the 
members of the family take some of the food and dab it on 
walls and roofs of the huts. They also put a little in their 
mouths and spit it out towards the east. The head of the 
family then holds some of the eleusine grain in his hand, and 
offers up the following prayer, everybody present repeating 
the words after him: 


1 A. C. Hollis, ‘*The Religion of the Nandi”, of. ct, i. 88; compare 
ad., The Nandi, pp. 42-46. 


Prayers for 
rain, 


Prayers 
after child- 
birth. 


284 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHis 


‘‘ God, give us health, 
And may we be given strength, 
And may we be given milk. 
Lf any man eats of this corn, may he like it, 
And if a pregnant woman eats tt, may she like tt.” } 

After the harvest has been gathered in, each geographical 
division (fororzet) of the tribe holds its own feast on the top 
of a hill or in a large open plain, and all the warriors gather 
and dance the war-dance. A great bonfire is kindled with 
the wood of certain trees and shrubs, and when the flames 
blaze high, a sort of doorway, like that of a cattle-kraal, is 
built near the fire, and as the warriors file past, the old men, 
standing by the door-posts, take a little milk and beer and 
spit it on them. The old men then sing as follows : 

“* God, give us health. 
God, give us ratded cattle, 
God, give us the offspring 
Of men and cattle.” 
Before the assembly separates, the old men kill and eat 
a pregnant goat, and the women, who have oiled their 
bodies, proceed to the nearest river, where they take two 
pebbles from the water: one of the pebbles they place in 


their water-jars and keep it there till the next harvest 


festival ; the other pebble they place in their granaries.” 
When there is a long drought, the old men assemble, 
and take a black sheep, and go with it toariver. There 
they tie a fur cloak on the sheep’s back and push the animal 
into the water. Next they take beer and milk into their 
mouths and spit them out in the direction of the rising sun. 
When the sheep scrambles out of the water and shakes 
itself, they recite the following prayer : 
““ God, we pray thee give us rain, 
Regard this milk and beer. 
We are suffering like women labouring with child, 
Guard our pregnant women and cows.” 
Four months after the birth of a child a feast is held. 
An ox or goat is slaughtered, and after the mother, child, 


1 A. C. Hollis, Zhe Mandi, pp. 46 op. cit. i. 80. 
sqge3 td. **The Religion of the Nandi”’, 
op. cit, i. 89. 3 A, C. Hollis, ‘*The Religion of 
2 A.C. Hollis, Tre Nandi, p.47; the Nandi”, of. c#t. i. 893; ia., The 
zd,, **The Religion of the Nandi”, MNandz, p. 48. 


eT a el 


re 


Vv WORSTHIPOOP THE SKY IN FASTERN AFRICA 


285 


and animal have been anointed with milk by one of the 
elders of the clan, the child’s face is washed with the un- 


digested food from the animal’s stomach. 


prays as follows: 


The elder then 


“ God, give us health. 


God, protect us. 


O our spirits, guard thts child, 
O belly, guard this child.” } 


When they begin to build a house, they perform a short Prayer at 
inaugural ceremony. The elders of the family pour milk 
and beer and put some salt into the hole that has been pre- 
pared for the reception of the central pole, and they say : 


‘God, give us health, 
God, give us milk. 
God, give us power. 
God, give us corn, 


God, give us everything that ts good. 
God, guard our children and our cattle,” * 


house- 
building. 


Among the Nandi, as among many savage tribes, the Prayer at 


potters are women. 


When the pots have been baked, the 


potters recite the following prayer : 


“God, give us strength, 


So that, when we cook in the pots, men may like them”.® 


When smiths search for iron ore they pray, saying: 


—“ God, give us health. 
God, give us iron.” 4 


pot- 
making. 


Prayer at 
seeking 
iron. 


As a rule, children do not pray, but when the two Prayer of 
middle incisor teeth of the lower jaw are extracted, accord- 
ing to the tribal custom, the child must throw the teeth eatraction 
away towards the rising sun, saying: 


““ God, take these brown teeth and give me white ones, 
So that I may drink calf’s milk” ® 


.1 A. C, Hollis, ‘‘The Religion of 
the Nandi”, of. cit. 1. 89 59.5 ta., The 
Nandi, p. 65. 

2 A. C. Hollis, ‘‘ The Religion of 
the Nandi”, of. cit. i. 89; zd., The 
Nandi, p. 15. 

8 A, C. Hollis, ‘‘The Religion of 
the Nandi”, of. czt. i. 90; 7a, The 


Nandi, p. 35. 

4 A. C. Hollis, ‘‘ The Religion of 
the Nandi”, of. cz. i. 90; za., The 
Nandi, p. 37. 

6 A. C. Hollis, ‘*The Religion of 
the “Nandi”, of. c#t, 1.°903 7¢d@., The 
Nandi, p. 30. 


children 
at the 


of teeth. 


286 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAD. 


Thus the Nandi, like their kinsfolk the Masai, may be 
fairly called a prayerful people. 
Is Asista a As Asis or Asista, the name of the Supreme God of the 
Pein Nandi, is also the name of the sun, it might be thought that 
Asis or Asista is a Sun-god rather than a Sky-god. It 
may be so, but in all that is recorded of him there seems to 
be very little except his name to connect him definitely with 
the sun,’ though the customs of spitting and throwing teeth 
in the direction of the sun certainly admit of, if they do 
not require, a solar interpretation. On the whole it is 
perhaps safer to class the great god of the Nandi among the 
kindly Sky-gods, whose range is so wide in Africa, than to rank 
him with the pure Sun-gods, who, apart from their occurrence 
in ancient Egypt, appear to be on the whole rare in Africa. 
Similarly we saw that among the Wachagga of Kilimanjaro 
the Supreme God is known by a name (Ruwa) which signifies 
the sun, though his attributes are rather those of a Sky-god.” 


A.C. Hollis On the Nandi religion and its relation to that of the 
HEAL o¢ Bantu tribes about them I will quote the remarks of Mr. 


the Nandi. A. C. Hollis, our highest authority on the tribe. He says: 
“Tt will be seen that the Nandi believe in a sky-god, whose 
name, as already stated, is synonymous with the sun. The 
Nandi also, like the surrounding Bantu peoples and unlike 
the Masai, worship and propitiate the spirits of deceased 
ancestors. Asa general rule it may, I think, be said that 
prayer and sacrifice to the sun or deities in the sky are un- 
known among the Bantu tribes of Eastern Africa, whilst this 
form of worship is followed by all the Nilotic or Hamitic 
tribes. The Bantu Kikuyu, it is true, acknowledge a sky-god 
whom they call Ngai, but both the name and the worship 
are obviously borrowed from the Masai. The Chaga, too, 
who sometimes pray to a sun-god called Iruwa, and spit 
towards the east when they leave their huts in the morning, 
have probably taken these customs from the Dorobo, who 
are nearly akin to the Nandi.” * 


1 Compare Sir Charles Eliot, in the Wapare. See above, pp. 197, 201 
A. C, Hollis, Zhe Manad?, p. xix. sgq. Compare pp. 122-124, 170 sg., 
2 See above, pp. 205 sgg. Other 173 5g., 279. 
African Sky-gods whose names appear 
to mean ‘‘ the Sun” are Ilanzi, the god 3 A. C. Hollis, ‘‘The Religion of 
of the Wafipa, and Ithuwa, the god of — the Nandi”, of. cz?. 1. 90. 


V WORSHIP OF LHL SKYIN LASITERN APRICA 287 


Like so many other African peoples, the Nandi tell a Story of the 

story to account for the origin of human mortality ; but cae i 
unlike some of their congeners they appear entirely to dog and 
exculpate the deity from all share in the unfortunate trans- inte 
action and to lay the whole blame of it on a dog. What 
happened, if we can trust their account, was as follows. 
When the first people lived on the earth a dog came to them 
one day and said, “ All people will die like the moon, but 
unlike the moon you will not return to life again unless you 
give me some milk to drink out of your gourd and beer to 
drink through your straw. -If you do this, I will arrange 
for you to go to the river when you die and to come to life 
again on the third day.” But the people laughed at the 
dog and gave him some milk and beer to drink off a stool. 
The dog was huffed at not being served in the same vessels 
as a human being, and although he put his pride in his 
pocket and swallowed the milk and the beer, he went away 
very sulky, saying, “All people will die, and the moon 
alone will return to life”. That is why, when people die, 
they remain away, whereas when the moon dies she re- 
appears after three days’ absence.’ If only people had 
treated that dog more civilly, we should all unquestionably 
have risen from the dead on the third day. 

The Suk belong, as we have seen, to the same group of The Suk 
Nilotic tribes as the Nandi and Masai, but they are much Brats 
less homogeneous and compact. The physical type varies 
greatly from the tall handsome Hamite, with almost perfect 
features, to the squab, dwarf-like pigmy with spread nose and 
protruding eyes. Their original home seems to have been 
on the Elgeyo escarpment, to the east of Mount Elgon, in 
Kenya Colony (British East Africa). Timber and grass are 
plentiful there, and the rocky descent into the Kerio offers 
many natural fortresses. In these mountain fastnesses, 
accordingly, the Suk appear to have been joined by many 
broken men, refugees from tribes that had been conquered 
or exterminated by more warlike invaders. Hence the 
diversity of physical type which now characterizes the Suk. 

Of all the tribes that have gone to compose the Suk nation, 


| 1 A. C. Hollis, The Mandi, p. 98. I have reported this story elsewhere 
(Folk-lore in the Old Testament, i. §4 59.). 


Belief of 
the Suk in 
a Supreme 
God called 
Tororut. 


A com- 
pendium 
of Suk 
theology. 


Asis, the 
Sun, and 
Ilat, the 
Rain. 


288 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


none has so deeply influenced both the language and the 
customs as the Nandi.’ 

The religious notions of the Suk are extremely vague; it is 
difficult to find two men whose ideas on the subject coincide. 
All, however, agree as to the existence of a Supreme Being ; 
most of them call him Torérut, that is, the Sky; but a few 
call him Ilat, that is, the Rain. A man named Tiamolok, 
one of the oldest of the Suk then living, and renowned for 
his knowledge of folk-lore, gave Mr. Beech the following out- 
line of Suk theology. ) 

“ Torérut is the Supreme God. He made the earth and 
causes the birth of mankind and animals. No man living 
has seen him, though old men, long since dead, have. They 
say he is like a man in form, but has wings—huge wings— 
the flash of which causes the lightning (ferza/), and the 
whirring thereof is the thunder (fofz/). He lives above 
(yzm), and has much land, stock, ivory, and every good thing. 
He knows all secrets; he is the universal father; all cattle 
diseases and calamities are sent by him as punishment to 
men for their sins. : 

“ His wife is Seta (the Pleiades), and his first-born son is 
Arawa (the Moon). //at (the Rain) is another son, as are 
Kokel (the Stars) his other children. TZopogh (the Evening 
Star) is his first-born daughter. Aszs (the Sun) is his 
younger brother, who is angry in the dry season. All 
these are gods, and all are benevolently disposed towards 
mankind.” ” 

This is a clear and consistent account of a great Sky- 
god, husband of the Pleiades, father of the Moon, the Stars, 
and the Rain, and elder brother of the Sun. It will be 
observed that according to this account Asis, the Sun, who 
is the chief god of the Nandi, occupies only a subordinate 
place in Suk theology. Other Suk, however, say that the 
only god they know is Ilat, the Rain, who is supreme and 
lord of life and death. Others, again, maintain that Ilat is 
the servant of Tordrut, that it is his duty to carry water, 
and that when he spills the water, it rains.® 


1M. W. H. Beech, Zhe Suh, their 2M. W. H. Beech, Zhe Suk, p. 19. 
Language and Folk-lore (Oxford, 1911), i 
PPL SIA e203 00. 3M. W. H. Beech, 7he Suk, p. 19. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 289 


On the whole, Mr. Beech, our best authority on the 
language, customs, and beliefs of the Suk, concludes that 
“the general consensus of opinion inclines to the belief in 
the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient being or entity, 
to whom it is advisable to make frequent prayers, and who 
is responsible, not only for the creation of the world, but for 
all the good and evil occurrences that have happened in it 
ever since.” ? 
The Alur are a Nilotic people who inhabit a consider- The Alur, 
able area on the western shore of Lake Albert and along 7.70t% 


people of 
the western bank of the Nile from the point where it issues LakeAlbert 


from Lake Albert to a point a little north of Wadelai. sea 
Their language differs from that of all the tribes around 
them and is identical with that of the Shilluk, who 
inhabit the western bank of the Nile much farther to the 
north. Hence there is every reason to accept as probable 
the tradition of the Alur that their ancestors migrated to 
their present home from the north more than a century ago.” 
They are an agricultural people, cultivating maize, sorghum, 
eleusine grain, bananas, and sweet potatoes. Eleusine 
grain constitutes their staple food. Men and women share 
in the labour of agriculture. But they also rear cattle, 
though théy do not pay so much attention to the herds as 
do the Dinka and Bari, two other tribes of the Upper Nile.® 

The Alur believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, Belief of 
whom they call Rubanga. His home is generally supposed "<4!" 


. ; : a Supreme 
to be the sky or the air, but no bodily attributes are ascribed Being 


to him. He receives little or no regular worship ; but when Barats 
the harvest has been good, a number of communities will] who lives 
meet together and hold a festival under shady trees. Men + ae a 
and women share in the festivity, and all join in singing, 
eating, and above all drinking in honour of Rubanga. But 
in general Rubanga is only invoked to explain events of 
which the causes are mysterious or unknown, as, for 
example, when some one is suddenly cut off in the prime of 
life, when a fire breaks out in a village and the incendiary 


cannot be discovered, or when one man’s herds multiply 


1M. W. H. Beech, 7he Suk, p. 20. 1894), pp. 492-494. 
2 Franz Stuhlmann, At Emin 8 Franz Stuhlmann, of. cet. pp. 497- 
Pascha ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 499. 


VOL. I U 


Belief of 
the Alur 
in spirits 
of nature 
and spirits 
of the 
dead, 


The Lango . 


district. 


290 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


while his neighbour’s cattle are dwindling away. In short, 
the Alur make of Rubanga a sort of stalking-horse to explain 
all inexplicable occurrences and to cloak their own ignorance. 
In ordinary life you may often hear such expressions as, 
“Rubanga has done that”; or, “Are you Rubanga, that 
you give yourself such airs?” ? 

Besides this mysterious being the Alur believe in the 
existence of spirits of nature, which dwell in the woods, the 
steppes, the river, and the wind. The river spirits are’ 
particularly feared, because the crocodiles do their bidding. 
Of a life beyond death the Alur are said to know nothing. 
Yet the spirits of the dead are believed to appear to them 
in dreams and to give them injunctions which it would be 
unlucky to disregard. But if a ghost persistently intrudes 
on somebody’s slumbers, the sufferer will lay a small gift on 
the grave of the deceased in order to get rid of his unquiet 
spirit. But apart from such petty offerings occasionally 
deposited on the graves and left there for a short time, there 
can hardly be said to be any regular worship of the spirits 
of the dead.’ 


The Lango district occupies a great region in the north 
of the Uganda Protectorate. Its area is between five and 
six thousand square miles, and it is inhabited by a variety 
of tribes, among which the Lango alone, who give their 
name to the district, number about a quarter of a million.® 
It is a flat, savannah-like country, for the most part treeless, 
but covered with coarse spear-grass some eight or ten feet 
high, and intersected by innumerable marshy rivers, whose 
sluggish current is almost blocked by thick vegetation. But 
the yellow - flowering mimosa is everywhere to be seen, 
yellow-flowering leguminosae break the monotony of the 
unending grass, and a profusely flowering lilac adds a touch 
of colour to the drab landscape. Papyrus lines the river 
banks, and water-lilies, blue, white, and yellow, drape the 
surface of Lake Kwania. In general, the prospect is limited 
by the tall grass, but in August and September, when the 
flowers are in full bloom and have been refreshed by the 


1 Franz Stuhlmann, of, czt. p. 528. 3 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, a 
2 Franz Stuhlmann, of. cet. pp. ilotic Tribe of Uganda (London, 


528 59. 1923), Pp. 42, 50. 


Vv WORKSAIP-OF THESKY JN EASTERN AFRICA 201 


passing of an occasional shower, the eye is pleased by 
frequent and unexpected patches of colour, where the 
Calotropis procera, with its balloon-like fruit, the gardenia, 
petunia and aster, jasmine and gladiolus, lupin and the 
heavy-scented clematis are all ablaze. Later in the year 
nothing is to be seen but the parched grass and here and 
there the sere and yellow leaves of withered and stunted 
trees. Only in the north-eastern portion of the district, 
where the rivers flow in deeper beds, the gullies are fringed 
with magnificent trees mantled with convolvulaceae and 
lianae in tropical exuberance.’ 

As might be expected from the nature:of the country, The game 
with its abundance of water and of cover, game is numerous 9..", 
and varied, including giraffe, rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo, 
eland, zebra, and many kinds of bucks. Wild boars are 
destructive of the crops; lions, leopards, and hyenas prey 
on the live-stock. Rats and voles are omnipresent. The 
hippopotamus is seen wallowing in some waters, and crocodiles 
abound in the rivers and lakes, except in Lake Kwania, where 
their numbers have been reduced by the Lango, who eat their 
flesh. Mosquitoes swarm everywhere, and at certain times 
and in certain regions sandflies are an unmitigated pest.’ 
Thus man has many foes to contend with in this exuberance 
of animal life. 

The Lango are a Nilotic people, and like other tribes of The 
the same stock they are a narrow-jawed, long-limbed, dark- ee 
skinned race, lean, but muscular. Their lips are much Physical 
thinner and their noses better formed, according to our ee 
European standard, than is usual among pure negroes, In eg De 
contrast with the practice of Bantu tribes, the men do all 
the hard work of cultivation, and this, together with the 
pursuits of hunting and fighting, has given them a fine 
appearance of, physical strength and activity, which is not 
belied by their powers of endurance and sustained exertion.® 
They raise good crops, but their success is due to the 
fertility of the soil rather than to their skill as farmers ; for 
they are agricultural from necessity and not from choice ; 
at heart, like other Nilotic tribes, they are a pastoral 


'J. H. Driberg, 7he Lango, pp. 2 J.H1. Driberg, The Lango, pp. 4659. 
43-46. 3 J. H. Driberg, 7he Lango, p. 50. 


292 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN ARICA CHAP. 


people, who really love their herds. Not infrequently, when 
cattle have died or been carried off by raiders, the women 
raise the cry of mourning, as if for a dead man. The type 
of Lango cattle is the short-horned, humped zebu. The 
owner of a cow milks her himself, or, in his absence, his 
children do it for him; but in no case may a woman. 
perform the duty. The Lango also keep goats and sheep, 
but do not milk them.’ 

Religion of The religion of the Lango is said to be composed of two 

Haar ae elements, on the one hand, the worship of ancestral spirits, 

inahigh and on the other hand the worship of a high god whom 

are they call Jok. This name for a Supreme Being is said to 
be known, in varying forms, to all the Nilotic tribes except 
the Jaluo, among whom, as we saw, the high god is known 
by a different name.” The Lango conception of Jok is 
vague. They. liken him to moving air, and a village in which 
many deaths occur is said to be on the path of the air or of 
Jok. He has never been seen, but he can be heard and 
felt ; he manifests himself most sensibly in whirlwinds and 
circular eddies of air. Like the air or the wind, he is omni- 
present ; his dwelling is everywhere—in trees, in rocks, in 
hills, in springs and pools, and more vaguely in the air.* 
Apparently, too, he inhabits the sky, for on rare occasions 
he has taken up people to it from the earth. One such 
visitor to heaven is known to have returned to this sublunary 
world after a stay of four days in the celestial mansions. 
He could not remember much of what he had seen; but he 
did know that there were a great many black, but no white, 
people in heaven; that they were just like people here on 
earth, except that they all wore tails, and that they ate 
nothing but fried flies, though there were cattle, sheep, and 
goats in plenty. Asa diet of fried flies did not agree with 
him, and there was nothing else to eat, he begged Jok to 
send him back to earth, and with this request the kind- 
hearted deity apparently complied.‘ 

Jok as Jok created the sky and the earth, which the Lango 

Seb conceive as the two halves of a great sphere; and the births 


of life. 
1 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, pp. 3 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, pp. 


90 597., 93, 94, 96. 216 sq. 
2 Above, p. 279. 4 J. H. Driberg, The Lango, p. 217. 


Vv MOnS GIF, OF SII PISK YIN EASTERN AFRIGA, 293 


both of men and animals are still referred to his agency. 
For example, a goat which bears twins or triplets is garlanded 
or festooned with a particular sort of convolvulus in recogni- 
tion of the favour shown by Jok to the animal ;! and of a 
human mother of twins it is said, “Jok visited so-and-so ; 
_ she has borne twins”. 

In general, the character of Jok is benevolent. From Jok is kind 
him come rich harvests, and he ordered the seasons so that PutJealous: 
the rainy season should ensure abundant crops, and that the 
dry season should allow of the joys of hunting. Further 
he shows his kindly nature in being always accessible to the 
prayers and inquiries of the faithful, and through his seers 
he gives advice on all matters great and small, but specially 
on the important topics of war and hunting. Still he is a 
jealous god and punishes neglect with severity, demanding 
his meed of sacrifice and observance. Scoffers who openly 
profess that they do not believe in Jok, and that his oracles 
are worthless, are punished by him with leprosy or a painful 
death. Indeed, disease, accidents, failure in hunting, loss of 
cattle, and many other tribulations are commonly regarded 
by the Lango as punishments inflicted by Jok upon men 
for their neglect or their sin. So powerful is Jok that his The over- 
proximity is dangerous to men, not so much because he aaa 
bears them ill-will, as on account of the very nature of the of Jok. 
divine essence, contact with which is more than a mortal can 
endure ; some buffer must be interposed to screen humanity 
from the awful, the overpowering energy of the deity. Hence 
the Lango never build their villages on hills, because hills 
are vaguely associated with Jok.® : 

Nevertheless, curiously enough, there is no danger to be Jok takes 
feared from Jok if he takes up his abode in a tree near the “P." 
village, or even in the village itself, for he will not do so in sacred 

° . . . . e,e . trees, 
without warning, which gives time to propitiate him by jie he is 
offerings, the erection of shrines, and compliance with his worshipped 
instructions concerning religious observances and the rules a a 
of life. The effect is to mollify the deity, or at all events to a 0» 
neutralize the danger inevitably attendant on his personality.* a: 


1 J. H. Driberg, 7he Lango, p. 223. 218, 223 sg. 
2 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, p. 222. 4 J. H. ‘Driberg, Zhe Laugo, pp. 
3 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, pp. 218 sg. 


Various 
titles of Jok, 


294 WORSHIP OLS THC OR VELN AL RICA CHAP. 


Indeed, the worship of Jok is specially associated with 
sacred trees. In this connexion he bears a special title, Jok 
Adongo, that is, Jok the Large or Powerful. Sometimes 
Jok will call a village headman by name at dead of night, 
and when the man answers, the deity will say, “Do not you 
or any of your people cut such and such a tree, for I am 
present in it, and it is sacred to me; nor may any one 
venture to pass under its shadow from oftyeno (about 5 P.M.) 
till dawn”. The headman instructs his people accordingly, 
and that tree is for ever sacred. No particular sort of tree 
is thus dedicated to Jok, but fig trees and kigelias are the 
kinds he specially favours. Once the tree has been thus 
sanctified by the presence of Jok, the headman resorts to it 
for the purpose of getting advice on such subjects as war 
and hunting. He goes to the tree at dawn, alone and un- 
attended, and standing at a safe distance asks the tree’s 
advice and counsel, observing that he and his people have 
faithfully refrained from injuring the tree or passing under 
its shadow. The tree will answer, speaking with a human 
voice and saying that the people have no claim on its 
gratitude; “For where”, it asks, “is my shrine? and where 
are my offerings and sacrifices?” It then directs the head- 
man as to the building of a suitable shrine. The shrine is 
thereupon built under the tree. It is a diminutive hut, con- 
sisting only of a grass roof supported on four posts about a 
foot high, the whole hut being no more than eighteen inches 
in diameter. Contented with this humble shrine and with the 
offerings at it, the tree, or rather Jok in the tree, will give 
an oracular response on any question which the headman 
may put to it, without the intervention of a seer or any 
other intermediary.’ 

Though Jok is conceived of as an indivisible entity per- 
meating the whole universe,’ and there is no plural form of 
his name,” yet he is known under a variety of titles which 
correspond to his different manifestations and _ activities. 
Thus one of his manifestations, as we have seen, is in the 
form of a tree-god, in which character he bears the title of 
Jok Adongo. But his oldest manifestation, curiously enough, 


1 J. H. Driberg, 7he Lango, p. 218. 
2 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, p. 223 note}. 


Vv WORSHIP UCP eL TE OR Yet RAS LERN'ARPRICA | 295 


is in the form of a female called Atida, a name which may Atida, the 
not be spoken by the vulgar, who address her as Min Jok, Sa 
that is, “the Mother of God”. She is particularly associated and her 
with hunting, fighting, and rain, and her oracles are mainly, soaaes 
though not exclusively, delivered by prophetesses.’ For tree. 
example, to the north of the River Moroto there is said to 
be a large banyan tree which for very many years has been 
sacred to Atida, the Mother of God, and under the tree sits 
the prophetess, a woman of great stature. In recent years 
the popularity of the shrine. has declined, but formerly the 
Lango resorted to it from far and wide to receive prophecies 
of war and of the chase, and they took with them presents 
of beer, or chickens, or goats. On the day of their arrival 
they would sit there in meditation, and next night they 
would lean their spears against the tree, in order that virtue 
might pass from the tree into the spears and give them 
success. In the morning they would proffer their request, 
and the prophetess would convey it to the tree and interpret 
the answer of the tree to the inquirers ; for, though the tree 
spoke with ahuman voice, its words were understood only by 
the prophetess. In that respect the banyan tree of the Mother 
of God differed from the trees animated by Jok Adongo, for 
these latter speak in a language intelligible to anybody who 
knows the Lango tongue. After a successful foray or hunt 
the votaries would bring thankofferings of loot or game, 
which were hung upon the banyan tree.” 
At an elaborate ceremony, which is annually performed Annual 
for the purpose of ensuring a due fall of rain, prayers are“ y 


and prayers 


addressed to Min Jok, the Mother of God, and her help is to the 
besought at the festival. She is implored to send abundant rede 
rain and to give a good harvest, and further she is urged to rain. 
disclose any persons whose hearts are evil, and who purpose 

to conceal or withhold the rain by magic. The ceremony 

takes place at a sacred tree, either a fig tree or a sycamore, 

and the men sit in orderly rows under the tree while the 
prayers for rain are being put up. The old men lead the 

prayer, and the others respond in a monotone, concluding 

each prayer with a long-drawn, deep-throated moan. After 


1 J. H. Driberg, The Lango, p. 218. 
2 J. H. Driberg, The Lango, pp. 219 sg. 


Jok as the 
patron of 
souls. 


Shrines for 
ghosts, 


296 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


the prayers. the men dance what is called the bell dance, in 
which all the performers imitate the actions of their totemic 
animals, whether the animal is a leopard, a monkey, a duiker, 
or what not. There is no instrumental music, but a singer 
stands in the middle of the circle of the dancers and sings 
while they dance. The ceremonies and the dances last several 
days. On the last day medicated water is thrown up into the 
air, and an old man climbs the tree and sprinkles the medi- 
cated water on its leaves, praying the while for good rains 
and harvest. The ceremony includes the sacrifice of a ram 
and a goat under the sacred tree. The members of one clan 
will use only a black goat for the sacrifice, because the black 
colour is symbolical of rain clouds. In no case may a red 
goat be employed as a victim. At the end of the festival 
the bones, heads, and skins of the ram and goat are taken 
away by an old man, who buries them secretly in a river or 
swamp.’ 

In one of his manifestations Jok is specially concerned 
with the souls (22f0) of human beings and animals, for some 
animals, such as giraffes, roan, elephants, rhinoceroses, and 
warthogs, possess souls, but others, such as lions and leopards, 
do not. In his capacity of patron of souls Jok is known as 
Jok Orongo.? Indeed, the spirits of the human dead are 
believed to merge into Jok. We are told that the idea 
which the word Jok now conveys to the Lango mind is 
apparently “the sum total of the long departed merged into 
one pre-existing deity called Jok, a plurality of spirits unified 
in the person of a single godhead, a Spiritual Force composed 
of innumerable spirits, any of which may be temporarily 
detached without diminishing the oneness of the Force”.® 

But in spite of this general absorption of souls in the 
deity after death, it seems to be beyond question that a 
certain number of them do retain their individuality, some- 
times indeed, a very marked and even obtrusive individuality, 
for a considerable time after their decease. For example,a 


1 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, pp. pp. 229 sg. The Lango word for soul 
249-253; 7za@., ‘*Rain-making among  (¢#f0) means ‘‘ shade” or ‘‘ shadow”. . 
the Lango”, Journal of the RF, It is applied equally to the souls of 
Anthropological Institute, xlix. (1919) — persons, animals, and inanimate ob- 
pp. 48-61. jects. See J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, 

3 J.-H. Driberg, Te Lang, p. 220, + op. eer, | 
As to the souls of animals, see 7d, 3 J, H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, p. 223. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA | 297 


ghost may demand that a shrine be erected for him. This 
demand he may either communicate personally to a relative, 
or he may so harass him by a series of petty annoyances 
that the man is driven to consult a diviner, who thereupon 
reveals the ghost’s wishes to him. A shrine is accordingly 
built for him, and in this he takes up his abode, and if he 
.is decently treated by the family he may favour them with 
as valuable advice as Jok himself, though sometimes, it 
must be admitted, the oracle is dumb, the ghost preserving 
an impenetrable silence. But whether he is taciturn or 
loquacious, his shrine exactly resembles those that are built 
for Jok, and at it he receives from time to time offerings of 
food and beer.’ 

But some ghosts are so unreasonable and fractious The 
that not even the construction of a shrine in their geen 
honour can pacify them. They continue to haunt and someghost. 
plague their relatives, till it becomes necessary to lay them 
once for all. For that purpose a man of God (ajoka, 
literally a Jok man) is sent for. On his arrival he is pre- 
sented with a he-goat. He kills the animal ceremonially 
and smears some of the contents of its stomach on the chest 
of the man who is haunted by the troublesome ghost. 
Then he shakes a rattle to avert evil influences and 
places in readiness a new-made jar with a narrow mouth. 
In the jar he puts some of the goat’s meat and a little of 
the sort of food of which the deceased in his lifetime was 
known to be fond. At the side of the jar he places the 
lid ready to be clapped on at a moment’s notice. The 
trap is now set and baited; it only remains to lure the 
ghost into it. For this purpose the man of God shakes his 
rattle vigorously and calls loudly on the ghost by name. 
Suppose the dead man was named Okelo, the man of God 
will cry, “Okelo, come here and take your food”. The 
ghost accordingly arrives on the scene of action, but he is 
wary and suspicious. “ How do I know that I may trust 
your” says he. “There are none of my friends here. 
Where is Ngulu?” naming a former friend. But the man 
of God is prepared to meet this objection, for he has 
summoned the friends and relations of the deceased, and 


' J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, p. 231. 


The 

release of a 
repentant 
ghost. 


State of the 
souls of 
animals 
after death. 


298 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN APRICA CHAP, 


they are now at hand, ready to answer to their names in 
case the ghost should. call for them. So Ngulu comes 
forward as a guarantee of good faith and sits down by the 
pot. The ghost then goes through the muster-roll of his 
old friends; they all answer to their names and come 
forward, or if any happen to be unavoidably detained, a satis- 
factory explanation of their absence is tendered to the ghost. 
The misgivings of the ghost are now dispelled, and firmly 
convinced that he is really being invited to a family feast, he, 
so to say, puts his head in the noose by entering the jar to 
partake of the savoury meat which his soul loves. But no 
sooner is he inside the jar than the man of God claps on the 
lid and fastens it down tightly. The ghost inside struggles 
manfully and raises a bitter cry, “Thou deceivest me, thou 
killest me”, but it is all in vain. The man of God turns a 
deaf ear to his remonstrances, seals the lid, carries away the 
pot, and buries it in the middle of a swamp. That is the 
end of the ghost as such. Henceforth his immortal spirit is 
absorbed in Jok, the deity." 

That may be taken as the regular method of giving a 
quietus to a troublesome ghost. But sometimes a ghost, on 
being safely caught and bottled up in a jar, is led to see the 
error of his ways and to promise amendment, if only they 
will let him out. On the other hand he threatens that, if they 
persist in sealing up the pot and burying it in the swamp, 
he will kill every soul in the village. Alarmed at these 
sanguinary threats, and knowing that, if the worst comes to the 
worst, they can always pot him again, his relations take off 
the lid and let him out, and even build a shrine for him in 
the village. But beside the shrine they always set the pot 
as a reminder to the ghost of what he may expect if he 
should relapse into his former career of crime. It is to the 
credit of ghosts in general that no such case of a backsliding 
ghost is on record.” 

Whether the souls of animals as well as of men are 
finally absorbed into the deity we are not informed ; but it 
seems clear that some of them at least lead an independent 
life for some time after the death of the body. For 


1 J, H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, pp. 232 5g. 
2 J. H. Driberg, The Lango, p. 233. 


Vv WORSHIP (OF THE SKY .IN EASTERN AFRICA 299 


example, if a hunter kills a rhinoceros, the soul or ghost of How to 
the rhinoceros is very vengeful and dangerous, and the slayer Es 
must at once return to his village and consult a seer.as to rhinoceros, 
what steps he should take to appease or lay the ghost of the 
animal. The ceremonies prescribed by the seer naturally 

vary with the circumstances, but they always include the 
sacrifice of a black ram at the door of the slayer’s house. 

The carcase is dragged whole into the wilderness and left 

near a river, but the old men of the village may go and eat 

it there, provided that they burn the skin and bones and 

throw the ashes into the water. Having thus appeased the 

ghost of the rhinoceros, the slayer may return and cut up its 

body ; but he may not bring the horns into the village, 
because in the case of a rhinoceros it is not physically 
possible wholly to eradicate the viciousness of the ghost. 

The same holds true in an even higher degree of the roan 
antelope, the ghost of which is most particularly vengeful, 
vicious, and dangerous.’ 

These facts are of interest for their bearing on the much- 
debated question whether or not animals possess immortal 
souls like those of men. In the opinion of the Lango some 
animals, such as elephants, rhinoceroses, and warthogs, 
certainly do possess souls which survive the death of their 
bodies, and their testimony on this Tisalar i topic may be 
accepted for what it is worth. 

A man who interprets Jok’s will for the benefit of his The 
fellow-creatures is called an ajoka, that is,a Jok-man or man SoU Maia 
of God. Both men and women may hold the sacred office ; of Jok’swill 
indeed the most famous of these divinely inspired ministers Spina 
have always been women. Women alone are competent Man of 
to serve in. the capacity of prophetesses at certain shrines, ae 
particularly at those of Atida or the Mother of God. While 
a man of God is engaged in ascertaining the will of Jok, he 
wears a serval skin slung down the front of his body, the 
forefeet being fastened round his neck, and he holds in his 
hand a rattle to avert inauspicious influences. An inquirer 
of the deity always prefaces his petition with a small present, 
generally some beer, flour, or cakes, part of which is offered 
at the shrine and the rest kept by the man or woman of 


1 J. H. Driberg, The Lango, pp. 229 59. 


Among the 
inspired in- 
terpreters 
of the 
divine will 
are epilep- 
tic patients, 
both men 
and women. 


The treat- 
ment of 
epileptics. 


The 
House of 
Exorcism. 


300 WORSHTPLOPALALGSANGIN BliiGs CHAP. 


God as his or her fee. If the petition is one of great 
importance a goat may be offered.’ 

Among these interpreters of the divine will a special 
class is occupied by epileptic patients, who may be either 
men or women, but are oftener women than men. _ For an 
epileptic fit is regarded as a sure and certain token of 
divine inspiration ; the deity is thought to have entered into 
the patient and taken possession of him or her; they say 
that “God has seized him” (/ok omake), The first step in 
such a case is to serve a notice of ejectment on God, in other 
words, to exoreize him. In former days the ejectment often 
took a very forcible form ; the patient was simply flogged to 
the accompaniment of drums and singing till God had left him, 
in other words till the fit was over. The present procedure 
is more elaborate. In every village, apparently, there is a 
small hut set specially apart for the use of inspired, that is, 
epileptic patients ; it is quite distinct from the shrine (adz/a) 
either of Jok or of a ghost, and it bears a different name, 
being called a House of Exorcism (o¢ abanz). It contains 
nothing but a sacred spear or spear of Jok (dong jok). - 
Accordingly, when a person falls down in a fit, an exorcizer, 
who must himself be an epileptic patient, comes to the hut 
of his fellow sufferer with a sacred spear in his hand and 
conducts him to the House of Exorcism, at the door of 
which a goat has been tied. At entering the house the 
patient. administers a kick to the goat, which is then 
removed and killed. A little of the meat is given to the 
sufferer, who eats it in the House of Exorcism. Meantime 
the whole village is engaged in drinking beer, dancing, 
singing, and making as much noise as is humanly possible 
in order to drive away evil influences. By this time the 
worst effects of inspiration are over; the convulsive stage is 
past, and though the patient is still possessed by Jok, he now 
lies passive, inert, and comparatively sane. The dance of 
exorcism is accompanied by the music of six large drums, 
and all the exorcizers who can be mustered for the occasion 
take part in it, carrying their sacred spears and shaking their 
rattles. On his recovery the patient has to pay the owner of 
the drums a goat and one hoe, and to supply him with new 


1 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Zango, p. 234. 


v WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 301 


skins for his drums, as the old skins are presumably worn 
out with the hard usage to which they have been subjected 
in the process of exorcism. At night he is led back to his 
own house, but the exorcizer who came to the rescue at the 
first instance remains for two days without food in the 
House of Exorcism, for it takes him that time to complete 
the exorcism. If the patient succumbs to the treatment, his 
friends submit to the will of heaven; for they know that the 
day fore-ordained for him has arrived, and that Jok has sent 
his spirit to take him away. But if he survives, as he 
generally does, he is now a fully qualified exorcizer (adanwa) 
and man of God (ajoka), competent at any time to reveal the 
will of God to his worshippers.’ 

Whenever Jok, in his special manifestation as Jok Nam, Oracles 
desires to communicate with a mortal, he always does so Ci Jok 
through one of these epileptics. When the chosen vessel by persons 
feels the old symptoms coming on, he takes his measures Sat i 
accordingly. He hurries to the House of Exorcism, and 
_ there, the full force of inspiration descending on him, he falls 
down in a fit and writhes in the usual convulsions which 
attest the presence of the deity. In this divine frenzy, Jok 
Nam, speaking through the mouth of the epileptic, summons 
the person with whom he desires to communicate. On his 
arrival he receives the divine message from the man or 
woman in the fit, who thereafter gradually recovers from the 
delirium of inspiration and remains in his right mind until 
the next time.” 

These exorcizers (abanwa) are invariably epileptic patients Exorcismof 
and can communicate the will of Jok just like ordinary men Uy 89s 
and women of God (aoka), who are not epileptics. In animals. 
certain cases, indeed, it is absolutely essential to consult 
them,.as when a man has killed an elephant, a rhinoceros, 
or a warthog, and goes about in bodily fear of the ghost of 
the warthog, the elephant, or the rhinoceros. In such an 
emergency the only person on earth who can relieve him of 
his terrors by laying the ghost of the animal is an epileptic.’ 

A qualified practitioner can voluntarily induce a fit of 
inspiration, that is, of epilepsy, by dancing and other 


1 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, pp. 2 J. H. Driberg, The Lango, p. 239. 
237-239. 3 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, p. 239. 


How the 
great god 
Jok can be 
outwitted, 


ipdsl 
Driberg 
on the 
religion of 
the Lango. 


302 WORSHIP OF THE SK YIN AFRICA CHAP. 


provocatives of violent excitement, and the words which in 
that state he utters are accepted by the inquirer as the words 
of God, a revelation of Jok Nam. But more usually he seats 
himself calmly in the House of Exorcism and falls into a 
trance, during which his soul leaves him and visits Jok, in 
his special manifestation as Jok Orongo, from whom the 
soul obtains the requisite information. On its return to his 
body the practitioner, still in a sort of trance, communicates 
the divine message to the inquirer, and then slowly returns 
to his normal condition.’ 

But while the great god Jok is thus regarded as the 
supreme fount of wisdom, which may flow down to mortals 
through epileptics and other suitable channels, his intelligence 
would seem to be, in certain directions, of a limited order ; 
for the Lango think that they can outwit and overreach 
him. For example, when the men are going out to hunt, 
they take the auspices, and it may be that the omens are 
unfavourable, prognosticating, for example, that one of the 
hunters will fall a prey to a leopard. To obviate this 
calamity, they mould clay figures of a man, a woman, and 
a leopard ; the leopard is represented in the act of biting 
the man, and the woman is supposed to be the man’s widow 
lamenting his death. The name of an enemy is given to 
the figure of the man, and that enemy, it is confidently 
anticipated, will be attacked and devoured by the leopard. 
This ingenious device is called “frustrating God” (keto /Jok), 
because the wrath of God is thereby diverted from its 
proper object to another.” Again, when the children of a 
family have died in succession, one after the other, the next 
born will be called by some such trivial or unseemly 
name as “frog”, “ordure”, and* so fortho= Dhusmduseess 
thrown in the eyes of the deity, who will not turn his atten- 
tion to a child so named, and thus the life of the infant will 
be saved.? From all this we may infer that in the opinion 
of the Lango their great god Jok is by no means infallible. 

To conclude this notice of Lango theology, I will quote 
the words of Mr. Driberg, our best and almost only authority 


1 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, p. 239. 3 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Zango, pp. 
2 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, pp. 144, 225. 
113 5g., 224 5g. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 


393 


on the people. He says: “It cannot be too often em- 
phasized that religion is a much more important factor in 
the secular life of primitive peoples than it is with civilized 
communities—indeed, it is the most important factor of all. 
It enters into all their family and social relations, into their 
most commonplace activities and their daily occupations— 
in short, there is no aspect of native life which has not its 
_ religious significance, and which is not more or less con- 
trolled by religious rites or prohibitions. Jok is so intensely 
all-pervading that in all important events prudence compels 
that his will be ascertained, lest he be offended by an 
unintentional slight, or in order to profit by his omniscience 
in obtaining the best results of a contemplated action.” ’ 


The Dinka are another Nilotic tribe, or rather congeries 
of independent tribes who occupy an immense territory in 
the valley of the White Nile, situated chiefly on the eastern 
bank of the river and stretching from the sixth to the 
twelfth degree of north latitude. Physically they are a 
typical Nilotic people, tall, long-legged, slender, and with a 
complexion of the deepest black. They are essentially 
a pastoral people, passionately devoted to the care of their 
numerous herds of cattle, though they also keep goats and 
sheep, and the women cultivate small quantities of millet and 
sesame. But besides the comparatively powerful tribes who 
own cattle there are some small and poor tribes who have 
no cattle and hardly till the ground, but live in the marshes 
near the river and depend largely for their support on 
fishing and hunting the hippopotamus. Their dirty evil- 
smelling villages are built on ground that scarcely rises above 
the vast reedy expanse of the marshes. The pastoral people 
naturally depend for their subsistence in great measure on 
the regular fall of rain, without which the pastures wither 
and the cattle die. Rain accordingly plays a great part in 
the religion and superstition of the Dinka.’ 


1 J. H. Driberg, Zhe Lango, p. 233. 

2 As to the Dinka and their country, 
see ‘*E, de Preussenaere’s Reisen und 
Forschungen im Gebiete des weissen 
und blauen Nil”, Petermann’s Geo- 
graphische Mittheilungen, Erginzungs- 
heft, No. 50 (Gotha, 1877), pp. 13 


sgqg., 18 sgg.; G. Schweinfurth, Zhe 
Fleart of Africa, Third Edition (Lon- 
don, 1878), i. 48 sgg.; Zhe Golden 
Bough, Part III. The Dying God, pp. 
28 sgq.; C.G. Seligmann, s.v, ‘‘ Dinka”, 
in J. Hastings, Amcyclopaedia of Re- 
ligion and Ethics, iv. 704 sqq. 


The Dinka, 
a Nilotic 

tribe of the 
White Nile. 


The Dinka 
worship 
ancestral 
spirits ( jok) 
anda 

high god 
Dengdit, 
whose 
name 
means 

‘* Great 
Rain”’. 


How 

the path 
between 
earth and 
heaven was 
cut off. 


304 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


The Dinka are a deeply religious people. They worship 
a host of ancestral spirits called zok and a high god called 
Dengdit, whose name means literally “Great Rain”. They 
also give him the name of Nyalich, which, literally translated, 
signifies “in the above”, being the locative form of a word — 
which means “above”. It is, however, only used as a 
synonym of Dengdit. A common beginning of Dinka 
prayers is Myalich ko kwar, that is, “ God and our ancestors ”. 
The phrase indicates the two main elements of which Dinka 
religion is composed, to wit, the worship of a high god and 
the worship of ancestors; and the order in which the two 
are mentioned in the prayer is significant of their relative 
importance, for there is no doubt that the great god Dengdit 
or Nyalich ranks above the ancestral spirits (jok). He is 
believed to have created the world and established the 
present order of things, and he it is who is supposed to send 
the rain from “the rain-place” above, which is especially 
his home. Nevertheless in the ordinary affairs of life the 
ancestral spirits (jok) are appealed to far oftener then 
Dengdit, and in some cases, in which the appeal is nominally 
made to Dengdit, its form seems to imply that he has been 
confused with the ancestral spirits.’ 

The Dinka have a legend that formerly earth and heaven 
were connected by a path, up and down which men used to 
pass at will, but that the path was unfortunately cut off 
under the following melancholy circumstances. Dengdit 
had a wife named Abuk. One day she was busy making 
men and women from a bowl of fat which her husband had 
given her for the purpose; for it appears that God had 
deputed to his wife the task of creating mankind. Softening 
the fat over the fire, she moulded the figures out of it with 
her hand, just as a Dinka potter moulds moist clay. As 
each person was completed in this fashion, he or she passed 
down the road to earth; for naturally the creation of human 
kind took place in heaven, the home of God and his wife. 
Well, while she was at work, God happened to pass by, and 
seeing what she was about he warned her against her father- 
in-law or brother-in-law Lwal Burrajok, with whom the 


1 C, G. Seligmann, s.v, ‘‘ Dinka”, in J. Hastings, Axcyclopaedia of Religion 
and Ethics, iv. 707. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA — 305 


deity was not on those amicable terms which might have 
been anticipated from their family relationship. But his 
wife forgot the warning and went to the forest to fetch wood, 
leaving the bowl simmering on the fire. Just then Lwal 
Burrajok strolled up, and seeing the bowl, drank some of 
the fat, spilt more of it on the ground, and out of pure 
mischief moulded what was left of the fat into preposterous 
figures, with eyes, mouths, and noses all bunged up and 
perfectly useless. He then went on his way, but fearing the 
wrath of his son-in-law or brother-in-law the deity, who 
could not be expected to take in good part this travesty of 
creation, he beat a retreat down to earth by the usual road. 
On her return, God’s wife was horrified to find the spilt fat 
and the misshapen figures, and she hastened to inform the 
deity of the trick which his father-in-law or brother-in-law 
had played her. God was naturally indignant and started 
in pursuit of his waggish relative by marriage. But when 
he came to the path leading down to earth, he found to his 
surprise that the communication had been cut and the road 
rendered impassable. For the culprit, anticipating pursuit, 
had persuaded a certain bird to bite through the path 
with its bill, That was the end of the path that used to 
join earth and heaven. The bird that did this great mischief 
is a little bird about the size of a wren, with red and brown 
plumage ; it builds its nests in the roofs of huts and is very 
common throughout the Sudan.} 

Shrines or temples of Dengdit appear to be scattered Shrines of 
all over the Dinka country. Most Dinka tribes have one P°7s"* 
shrine in their territory. At these shrines the people pre- 
sent offerings.” It is said that in former days a hut was 
built in every village to serve as God’s house, and that 
sacrifices were offered at it.® Of these shrines one of the 
holiest is at Luang Deng. The Dinkas visit it in great 
numbers. Its guardians are thought to be in a special 
sense the servants of Dengdit. Only they may enter the 


shrine. But a man desirous of offspring. may bring cattle Sacrifices 
of cattle to 

1S. L. Cummins, ‘‘ Sub-tribes of 3S, L. Cummins, ‘“Sub-tribes of Dengdit at 
the Bahr-el-Ghazal Dinkas”, Journal the Bahr-el-Ghazal Dinkas”, /ourna/ his shrines. 
of the Anthropological Institute, xxxiv. of the Anthropological Institute, xxxiv. 
(1904) pp. 157 59. (1904) p. 157. 

2 C. G. Seligmann, of. cz. p. 708. 

VOL. I X 


Worship 
of dead 
ancestors 
and 
sacrifices 
on their 
graves. 


306 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP. 


to the shrine and offer them to Dengdit, praying that the 
desire of his heart may be granted. The door of the shrine 
is regularly kept shut, but it is opened when one of the 
animals offered to Dengdit is slaughtered ; and, peering in 
through the doorway, the worshipper discerns in the darkness 
the shifting shapes of men and animals, and even of 
abstractions like happiness, hunger, satisfaction, and cattle- 
disease. No sacrifice is made until Dengdit has sent a 
dream to the keeper of the shrine, authorizing him to 
accept the offering, so that worshippers are nearly always 
kept waiting for a few days till the keeper dreams his dream. 
But it rarely happens that a sacrifice is finally refused. It 
is thought that if a man be sent away without being 
allowed to sacrifice, he will soon die, or disease will attack 
his people. As the worshipper approaches, he is accom- 
panied by two servants of the shrine, one on either side. 
The animal is killed with a spear kept specially for the 
purpose, and the spirit of the victim goes to join the other 
Spirits in the shrine. Before the worshipper leaves the 
shrine, one of the servants of Dengdit takes dust from the 
holy precincts, mixes it with oil, and rubs the mixture over 
the body of the devotee. Sometimes a material object, 
as a spear, may be given to a man as a sign of favour and 
a guarantee that he will obtain his wish. In front of the 
shrine a low mound of ashes has arisen through the 
cooking of many sacrifices, and on it offerings, such as 
pieces of tobacco, may be thrown. The contents of the 
large intestine of the victim are scattered over and about 
this mound, and near it the worshippers thrust the branch 
of a tree called akoch into the ground.’ 

In the Shish tribe of Dinka, certain men who lived long 
ago were spoken of as “the sons of Dengdit”, though this 
expression does not imply a physical relationship ; it appears 
that the Shish considered these “sons” as spirits that came 
from above to possess certain men who became known by 


1 C, G. Seligmann, of. czt. p. 708. tinction drawn between Dinka and 
Dr. Seligmann adds the following note: Nuer to be erroneous, and that the 
‘‘ According to prevailing views, this Nuer are simply a tribe of Dinka 
shrine is situated in Nuer territory, differing no more from other admittedly 
though it was formerly held by Dinka, Dinka tribes than these do among 
and there are Dinka priests at the themselves.” 
shrine. The writer believes the dis- 


Vv WORSTIIPIOF LHENSKY IN EASTERN AFRICA © °307 


their names. Each of these men is regarded as the ancestor 
of a Shish clan and has become a powerful ancestral spirit 
(yok) of the usual type. Every year, after the harvest has 
been reaped, ceremonies are performed at the graves of these 
men, four in number, whos¢ names are Walkerijok, Majush, 
Mabor, and Malan. At this yearly sacrifice a man, in 
whom the ancestral spirit is supposed to be immanent, kills 
a sheep or a bull, and smears its blood and the contents of 
the large intestine on the grave in the presence of the 
descendants of the hero, for no person but the descendants 
of the hero may take part in the rite. The flesh is boiled, 
all eat thereof, and great care is taken not to break the 
bones, which are thrown into the river.! 

The beliefs of the Dinka concerning the fate of the Beliefs of 
human souls (afzep) after death are apparently not always nia} 
consistent with each other. On the one hand they think the fate of 
that the spirits of the old and mighty dead (joé) and the ‘be human 
spirits of the recent dead (atzep) exist in and around death. 
the villages in which their descendants live. Of these two 
sorts of spirits those of the ancient dead (of) are the more 
powerful and energetic, and they sometimes have special 
shrines built in their honour. They are also supposed to 
have their home in the earth, in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of their shrines. The spirits of the recent dead (avtzep) 
are thought to be at their strongest immediately after death, 
and although funeral feasts are held for no other purpose 
than to propitiate them lest they should cause sickness and 
death, they gradually grow weaker, and in a very few 
generations may safely be forgotten. The spirits of the Sacrificesto 
ancient or, as we may perhaps style them, the heroic dead {76 P° 
(jok) retain their strength and energy, and require to be _ 
propitiated by sacrifice. Nor are the sacrifices offered 
to them on stated occasions sufficient to satisfy their 
craving. They accept these as their due, but they also 
make known their wants by appearing to their descendants 
in dreams and demanding that a bullock or other animal 
shall be killed ; or they may appear to a professional seer 
(tie) and command him to deliver their message. If their 
demands are disregarded, they send sickness or bad luck, 


1 C, G. Seligmann, of. c#t. pp. 708, 709. 


308 WORSATP OF (THE SKYVCIN APRICA CHAP. 


and the only remedy for these ills is sacrifice. But the 
spirits of the heroic dead (jok):may send sickness to man- 
kind without warning them beforehand in dreams, and visions 
of the night ; hence the usual treatment of all sickness is to 
begin by making offerings to the heroic dead or to the great 
god Dengdit, when he is confused with them.’ 
Belief that But side by side with this belief that the spirits of the 
Nees dead are everywhere around them and mingling in the 
toDengdit. affairs of the living, the Dinka entertain another and 
apparently incompatible belief, that after death the human 
soul (atzep) leaves the neighbourhood of its body at the time 
of burial and passes upward to the great god Dengdit in his 
place between earth and sky, whence comes the rain from 
which the deity, as we have seen, takes his name. But the 
spirits that thus attain to the abode of Dengdit are not 
absorbed in him, for they retain their power of returning to 
earth. It is a common notion that the spirits of the ancient or 
heroic dead (ok) can pass to and from this earth to Dengdit, 
and one of the most familiar articles of Dinka faith is that 
these august beings come to every dying person to take and 
conduct his parting spirit (a¢zep) to its placeof rest. The Niel 
Dinka believe that these angels of death, as we may call 
them, come in the form of their totem animals; for the 
Dinka are divided intd totemic clans, and most of the clans 
speak of their totemic animals as their ancestors. Among 
the totemic animals, and therefore the ancestors, of the Dinka 
are snakes, crocodiles, hippopotamuses, lions, and foxes.” 
Oaths by The reverence which the Dinka entertain for Dengdit 
Dengdit. appears in their oaths. In small matters the Shish Dinka 
affirm the truth of their asseverations “by Nyalich”, which, 
as we have seen, is a synonym for Dengdit. Among the 
Agar Dinka a form of oath is to place a spear or stick on 
the ground and jump over it, saying, “By Dengdit, I have 
not done this thing; if I have, may my spear be speedily 
put on my grave!” This refers to the Agar custom of 
putting a man’s spear, bracelets, and shield on his grave for 
seven days. The most solemn and terrific oath of all is to 
go‘to the shrine of Dengdit and swear by it.’ 


1 C. G, Seligmann, of. ¢z¢. p. 709. Soasn le 
2 C. G. Seligmann, of, czt. pp. 705 3 C, G. Seligmann, of, cit. p. 712. 


Vv WOKS UL eel LIV OAS TEV AL KIGA 309 


The need of rain for the pastures and hence for the Import- 
cattle, which are the staff of life for the Dinka, has tended 2)" y 
to invest the office of rain-maker (6az7) among them with makers 
the highest dignity and power. The men who are commonly 5),...° a 
called the chiefs or sheikhs of the Dinka tribes are regularly. 
rain-makers, actual or potential. A successful rain-maker is 
supposed to be animated by the spirit of the great rain- 
makers of the past, and his influence is very great, for in 
virtue of his indwelling spirit he is believed to be wiser than 
common men.’ One of these ancestral spirits supposed to Lerpiu an 
be immanent in living rain-makers of the Bor tribe is called ae 
Lerpiu. In 1gtt the rain-maker of the Bor tribe believed thought 
himself to be animated by the great and powerful spirit ay Recetas 
Lerpiu, and he affirmed that at his death Lerpiu would pass i rain- 
into his son. There is a shrine in which Lerpiu is thought aa 
to reside more or less constantly. Within the hut is kept a 
very sacred spear, which also bears the name of Lerpiu, and 
before it stands a post, to which are attached the horns of 
many bullocks sacrificed to Lerpiu. The ceremony which is Sacrificesto 
intended to ensure the rainfall consists of a sacrifice offered Sak 
to Lerpiu for the purpose of inducing him to move Dengdit rain. 
to send the rain; for Lerpiu is regarded only as a mediator 
between men and the great sky-god or “rain-god Dengdit. 

The ceremony takes place in spring, about April, when the 
new moon is a few days old. In the morning two bullocks 
are led twice round the shrine and are tied to the post by 
the rain-maker. Then the people beat drums, and men and 
women, boys and girls, all dance round the shrine. Nothing 
further is done until the bullocks urinate, when every one 
who can get near the beasts rubs his body with the urine. 
After that all except the old people go away. Presently the 
rain-maker kills the bullocks by spearing them and cutting 
their throats. While the sacrifice is being prepared, the 
people chant: “ Lerpiu, our ancestor, we have brought you a 
sacrifice: be pleased to cause rain to fall”. The blood of 
the sacrifice is collected in a gourd, transferred to a pot, put 
on the fire, and eaten by the old and important people of 
the clan. Some of the flesh of one bullock is put into two 
pots, cooked with much fat, and left for many months near 


1 C, G, Seligmann, of. czt. p. 711. 


Sacrifices 
for rain 

at the 
beginning 


of the rainy 


season, 


The 
Shilluk, 

a Nilotic 
tribe of the 


White Nile. 


310 WORSHIP (OF THE SKY AIAN ALRICA CHAP. 


a sacred bush (aoz), which is an essential part of the shrine, 
because the spirit of Lerpiu is believed to quit the hut and 
come to the bush during the great rain-making ceremony 
in spring. Hence the meat left in pots at the bush is no 
doubt destined for his consumption; indeed, it is expressly 
said to be intended for the ancestral spirit (jo#). But the 
meat of the other bullock is eaten the’same day. The bones 
of the sacrificed bullocks are thrown away, but their horns 
are added to the rest on the post.’ 

Besides the great rain-making ceremony performed at a 
central shrine, some tribes offer a sacrifice for rain in each 
settlement. Among the Shish Dinka this takes place before, 
or at the beginning of, the rainy season. The old men of the 
settlement (daz) kill a sheep, thanking and praising Dengdit. 
The victim is bisected longitudinally and horizontally, and 
the upper half is cut in pieces and thrown up into the air as 
an offering to Dengdit. As the pieces fall on the ground, 
so they are left and are soon eaten by dogs and birds. The 
blood of the sacrifice is allowed-to soak into the ground, but 
the rest of the meat is boiled and eaten ; the bones may not 
be broken; they are buried in the skin for seven days and 
then cast into the river. Some durra (a kind of millet) is 
boiled, thrown into the air, and then left lying on the ground 
just like the flesh of the sacrifice? The throwing of the 
offerings, whether of flesh or of grain, up into the airis a very 
natural way of presenting them to the deity whose home is 
in the upper regions of the world. 

The Shilluk are a Nilotic tribe or nation of the White 
Nile. Their country is a narrow strip on the western bank 
of the river from Kaka in the north to Lake No in the 
south. They also occupy a portion of the eastern bank, and 
their villages extend some way up the Sobat River. Their 
country is almost entirely in grass; hence cattle constitute 
their wealth and the principal object of their care, but they 


also grow a considerable quantity of durra (a species of 


millet), though not enough to support the dense population. 
The villages are built on the slight elevations which break 
the monotony of the plain. Physically the Shilluk conform 
to the Nilotic type, being tall, lean, and so dark in colour as 


1 C, G, Seligmann, of. cz¢. pp. 711 sg. 2 C. G. Seligmann, of, cit. p. 712. 


—— ae 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 311 


to be almost black. The cheek-bones and lips protrude, but 
not excessively so; the nose in general is flat, but high noses 
are not infrequent.’ 

The Shilluk believe in the existence of a high god whom Beliefofthe 
they call Juok. He is formless and invisible, and, like the eae 
air, he is everywhere at once; he is far above men and even called Juok 
above Nyakang, the semi-divine ancestor of the Shilluk Bowertal 
kings; nevertheless it is only through Nyakang, as mediator ante 
or intercessor, that men can approach him, for by sacrificing Nyakang. 
to Nyakang they induce him to move Juok to send rain. 
Although the name of Juok occurs in many greetings, as 
in the phrase, “ May Juok guard you!” (Yemstz /Juok), and 
although a sick man may, like Job, remonstrate with the 
deity, crying out, “Why, O Juok?” (Er ra /uok), yet it seems 
doubtful whether he is ever worshipped directly; and although 
some Shilluk may vaguely associate the dead with him, this 
feeling does not seem to imply any dogma concerning the 
abode and state of the dead. There is an undefined but 
general belief that the spirits of the dead are about every- Beliefofthe 
where, and that sometimes they come to their descendants sae ane 
in. dreams and help them in sickness or give them good ofthedead. 
counsel. Yet, though, in the case of important men the 
funeral rites are neither short nor lacking in ceremony, never- 
theless there is no such considerable worship of ancestral 
spirits among the Shilluk as there is among the Dinka. 

The explanation is probably to be found in the concentra- 
tion of the religion of the Shilluk on the worship of Nyakang 
and of the divine kings in whom the spirit of Nyakang is 
believed to be incarnate. Thus, while the Dinka commonly 
attribute sickness to the action of an ancestral spirit, the 
Shilluk regard the entrance of the spirit of one of their 
divine kings into the patient’s body as the most usual cause 
of illness. But probably it is only the ancient kings who 
are imagined to afflict people in this manner. Be that 
as it may, the practical religion of the Shilluk at the present 
time is the worship of Nyakang.” 

1C. G. Seligmann, Zhe Cult of | 458; D. Westermann, Zhe Shilluk 
Nyakang and the Divine Kings of the  FPeople (Berlin, 1912), pp. xx-xxiii. 
Shilluk (London, 1911), p. 2173 7a., 2 C. G. Seligmann, Zhe Cult of 


sv. ‘*Shilluk”, in J. Hastings, Zx- Nyakang and the Divine Kings of the 
cyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, xi. Shilluk (London, 1911), p. 220; 7zd., 


Father 
Hofmayr 
on the 
Shilluk 
conception 
of Juok. 


312 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


The Shilluk conception of Juok is thus explained by 
a Catholic missionary, Father Hofmayr: “ The fundamental 
idea of the Shilluk word Juok is that of a Being who is 
unfathomable and unknown; to whom is ascribed everything 
that is gigantic and beyond the reach of human understand- 
ing ; who stands high above the spirits of the dead and the 
evil spirits, to which he abandons the world, and who thus 
has nothing to oppose him. The good and evil that befall 
mankind are both attributed to him, for he is the Creator, 
the Punisher of Sins, and the Author of Death. For the 
rest, he dwells high above and troubles himself not about 
mankind ; good and bad luck he has committed to the care 
of the subordinate spirits. Hence, once born into the world— 
the only good turn which the Shilluk acknowledges that he 
owes to Juok—the ordinary man is no longer dependent 
on him; indeed, since everything comes to him from his 
ancestors and he knows Juok only as an avenger, he feels 
under no obligation whatever to do any reverence to his 
Creator and Lord. It is very seldom that he mentions the 
name of Juok, and then only in three forms of greeting, on 
arrival, ‘Juok has brought you’, ‘Juok has kept you’; and 
again at parting, ‘Juok guide you.’ 

“To Juok, too, is ascribed anything wonderful or 
monstrous. So, for example, when Halley’s comet was 
seen here in full splendour, it was immediately entitled Juok 
or Juok’s Star. When the first great Nile steamers passed 
by the lands of the Shilluk, the people said, ‘Such ships can 
no man make: they are the handiwork of Juok’. 

“Lastly, the word Juok is mentioned in cases of sickness 
and death; at such times the Great Spirit appears only as 
the avenger of past sins. Thus, they say, ya da /uok, ‘1 am 
sick’, or anake Juok, ‘He is dead’. Only on such an 
occasion is an offering made, and that is done, not to show 


sv. ‘*Shilluk”, in J. Hastings, £7- 
cyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, xi, 
459, 462. Compare W. Hofmayr, 
‘* Religion der Schilluk”, Azthropos, 
vi. (1911) pp. 120 sgg.; D. Wester- 
mann, Zhe Shilluk People, pp. xxxix 
sqgqg. Father Hofmayr spells Juok’s 
name as Cuok, and Nyakang’s name 
as Nykang. Mr. Westermann spells 


Juok’s name as Jwok and Nyakang’s 
name as Nyikang. For the sake of 
uniformity I have adopted the spellings 
Juok and Nyakang throughout, even 
in quoting from Father Hofmayr. As 
to Nyakang and the divine kings of 
the Shilluk, see also Zhe Golden 
Bough, Part Ill. Zhe Dying God, 


Pp. 17 599. 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA — 313 


reverence to the deity, but only to appease the spirit, and 
that in a mood of sorrow and dejection that accords well 
with the circumstances. If after such an offering the sick 
man recovers, strings of beads are tied round his feet, the 
cure is ascribed to Nyakang’s intercession with Juok, and the 
convalescent belongs to the class of persons who are dedicated 
to King Nyakang... . 

“As to the essence of Juok, he is yoo, that is, wind or The 
spirit, able to be present everywhere, invisible, from whose ("nce a 
hand everything has proceeded and can proceed. This 
Being can assume different shapes at pleasure, but he does 
not do so, at least not since the great kings have become 
his intermediaries. 

“To the question where this great Being dwells, the The abode 
Shilluk answers, e a mal, he is above, in the air, above the % Ju: 
clouds, there he has a great. house, there he lives, old and 
alone. Though the Shilluk stands at a lower level than the 
Mohammedans to whom he'was once subject, he does not 
think, at least he does not speak, of life in the other world 
after so sensuous a fashion as his former rulers, When the 
sun is passing the highest point in the sky, it is said that he 
is going under Juok’s house. Juok can certainly choose 
different places of abode, yet he does not do so and is 
usually at home, just like the elders of the Shilluk, who love 
to be in repose. He only comes to earth when something 
is to be created or when he visits the villages with sickness 
and death. What this Great Spirit does at other times, the 
Shilluk know not. Their notion of him is modelled on the 
mode of life of their aged chiefs, who, lacking nothing, pass The idea 
their time in gossip. Of old, after the creation, men often °% JU 


got speech of God. Nyakang was the first and last Shilluk Sibat of 
who conversed with the Great Spirit. Since he vanished °°" 
from the earth, Juok has not deigned to deal directly with 
mankind, but does everything at the intercession of that 
first king.” ? 

Of the creation of mankind the Shilluk tell the following Shitluk 
story. They say that Juok, the Creator, moulded all men Sele: 
out of earth, and that while he was engaged in the work of men by 


creation he wandered about the world. In the land of the J°* 


1 W. Hofmayr, ‘‘ Religion der Schilluk”, An¢hropos, vi. (I9II) pp. 121 sg. 


314 WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN AFRICA CHAP, 


whites he found a pure white earth or sand, and out of it he 
fashioned white men. Then he came to the land of Egypt, 
and out of the mud of the Nile he made red or brown men. 
Lastly, he came to the land of the Shilluks, and finding there 
black earth he created black men out of it. The way in 
which he modelled men was this. He took a lump of earth 
and said to himself, “1 will make man, but he must be able 
to walk and run and go out into the fields, so I will give 
him two long legs, like the flamingo”. Having done so, he 
thought again, “The man must be able to cultivate his 
millet, so I will give him two arms, one to hold the hoe, 
and the other to tear up the weeds”. So he gave him two 
arms. Then he thought again, “The man must be able to 
see his millet, so I will give him two eyes”. So two eyes 
he gave him. Next he thought to himself, “The man must 
be able to eat his millet, so I will give him a mouth”. So 
a mouth he gave him. After that he thought within himself, 
“The man must be able to dance and speak and sing and 
shout, and for these purposes he must have atongue”. And 
a tongue he gave him accordingly. Lastly, the deity said 
to himself, “The man must be able to hear the noise of the 
dance and the speech of great men, and for that he needs 
two ears”. So two ears he gave him, and sent him out into 
the world a perfect man.’ 
Dente the It is clear that Juok, the God of the Shilluk, is identical 
compared both in name and nature with the Jok of the Lango.” But 
Net aa while both names agree with the 7ok of the Dinka, they 
and the differ from it in meaning, since in the Dinka language jok 
Dinka. —_ signifies, not a great God and Creator, but the spirit of a 
dead ancestor. From this it might perhaps be inferred that, 
if we could trace back the history of the Shilluk Juok and 
of the Lango Jok far enough, we should find that both these 
great Gods were men who had been deified after death. It 
may be so, but the analogy of African Sky-gods or Supreme 
Beings in general is against the hypothesis. For we have 


1 W. Hofmayr, ‘‘Religion der also that the word ¢zfo in the sense 
Schilluk ”, Amthropos, vi. (1911) pp. both of shadow and of the human 
128 sg. I have cited this story of soul is common to the Lango and the 
creation elsewhere (/o/k-/ove in the  Shilluk languages, See J. H. Driberg, 
Old Testament, i. 22 sq.). The Lango, pp. 228 sgg.; D. Wester- 

2 Above, pp. 292 sgg. Itis notable mann, Zhe Sh7/luk People, p. xlv, 


Vv WORSHIP OF THE SKY IN EASTERN AFRICA 315 


seen that for the most part the high gods or Supreme 
Beings are sharply distinguished from the ancestral spirits 
not only in name but in function; for while the task of 
creating the world and man is usually assigned to the high 
god, who generally dwells in the sky, or at all events in the 
upper region of the air, the work of carrying on what we may 
call the ordinary business of the world is commonly supposed 
to be deputed to the spirits of the dead ; for it is from them 
that the African for the most part imagines that he experi- 
ences both good and evil, and it is they accordingly whom 
he feels bound to propitiate by prayer and sacrifice, while the 
Creator, having retired from the active conduct of affairs and 
committed it to the inferior spirits, is supposed to exercise 
little or no direct influence on human life and accordingly 
receives but scanty worship from his creature man. The 
meaning of the names of African Supreme Beings is com- 
monly unknown or disputed ; but it is significant that among 
not a few tribes of Eastern Africa the name of the high The names 
god undoubtedly signifies Sun, Sky, or Rain,’ while other pee ae: 
tribes of Eastern Africa and many tribes of Northern Nigeria some of _ 
positively identify their Supreme God with the Sun, whether tara 
they call him by the name of the Sun or not.” So far as Sun, Sky, 
’ ‘ or Rain. 

they go, these facts support the view that African Sky-gods 
or Supreme Beings in general are not deified ancestors, but 
simply personifications of the great celestial phenomena, 
whether the sky, or the rain, or the sun. 

1 Sun among the Wagala, the Wafipa, Sun); p. 288 (as to the Sky); pp. 277, 
the Wapare, the Wachagga, and the 288, 304 (as to the Rain). 
Nandi; Sky among most of the Suk ; 2 See above, pp. 122-124 (as to the 
Rain among the Masai, the Dinka, and tribes of Northern Nigeria), 170 sg. (as 


some of the Suk. See above, pp.197, tothe Barotse), 173 sg.(as to the Louyi), 
201-203, 205-207, 211, 281 (asto the compare p. 279 (as to the Kavirondo). 


Prithivi, 
the Vedic 
Farth- 
goddess, is 
the wife of 
the Sky- 
god Dyaus, 
but other- 
wise hardly 
figures 

in Vedic 
mythology. 


Hymn to 
the Earth- 
goddess 
in the 

A tharva- 
veda, 


GHIA BR 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE ARYAN PEOPLES 
OF ANTIQUITY 


§1. Zhe Worship of Earth among the Vedic Indians 


HAVING treated in previous chapters of the personification 
and worship of the sky, we may next proceed to examine 
the corresponding personification and worship of the earth, 
which in the physical world is in a sense the counterpart of 
the sky. In mythology the Earth, regarded as a person, 
is often conceived of as the wife of the Sky-god. We 
have seen that among the ancient Aryans of India the Sky 
and Earth were thus personified as husband and wife under 
the names of Dyaus and Prithivi, the father and mother 
of all living creatures." But apart from her association as 
a wife with the Sky-god, the Earth-goddess Prithivi appears 
to have played a very small part in Vedic religion. She is 
praised alone in a short hymn of the Rzg-veda,? but in it 
she is hardly regarded as an Earth-goddess pure and simple ; 
for, though she is said to quicken the earth, she is also 
described as wielding the thunder-bolt. In the AZztharva- 
veda, which is a much later collection of hymns than the 
Rig- veda and was not at first recognized as canonical,° 
there is a long and beautiful hymn addressed to the Earth- 


1 Above, pp. 22 sgq. 

2 Rig-veda, v. 84; Hymns of the 
Rigveda, translated by R, T. H. Griffith 
(Benares, 1889-1892), vol. i. p. 301. 

3 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 
The Indian Empire (Oxford, 1909), 
il, 229. 
Macdonell) says that ‘‘the Atharvaveda 


316 


The writer (Professor A. A. - 


is decidedly later in language than the 
Rigveda, but earlier than the Avah- 
manas. It must have been in existence 
as a collection by 600 B.C., but was 
a long time in attaining to canonical 
rank, It was, however, recognized 
as the fourth Veda by the second 
century B.C.” 


cH. vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 317 


goddess." In it we read: “The Earth is the mother and I 
am the son of the Earth: Parjanya is the father; may he 
nourish us!”* and again: -“Revetence be paid to the 
Earth, the wife of Parjanya, to her who draws her richness 
from showers”.’ Here it will be noticed that the husband 
of the Earth-goddess is not the Sky-god Dyaus, but Parjanya, 
who appears to be a personification of the rain-cloud.* In 
the same hymn we read: “O Mother Earth, kindly set me 
down upon a well-founded place! With (father) Heaven 
co-operating, O thou wise one, do thou place me into happi- 
ness and prosperity!”° But the greater part of the long 
‘hymn is devoted to a description of the physical earth 
with its hills and snowy mountains and plains, its seas and 
rivers, its forests, and its races of men and animals. As to 
the inhabitants of the earth the poet says, addressing the 
goddess: “ The mortals born of thee live on thee, thou 
supportest both bipeds and quadrupeds. Thine, O Earth, 
are these five races of men, of mortals, upon whom the rising 
sun sheds undying light with his rays. These creatures 
all together shall yield milk for us; do thou, O Earth, give 
us the honey of speech! Upon the firm broad earth, the 
all-begetting Mother of the plants, that is supported by 
(divine) law, upon her, propitious and kind, may we ever pass 
our lives! . . . Upon the earth men give to the gods the 
sacrifice, the prepared oblation; upon the earth men live 
pleasant lives by food. May this Earth give us breath and 
life, may she cause me to reach old age!”° Once more we 
read in the hymn: “The earth upon whom the noisy 
mortals sing and dance, upon whom they fight, upon whom 
resounds the roaring drum, shall drive forth our enemies, shall 
make us free from rivals!”’ Throughout the hymn the poet 
never loses sight of the material nature of the earth; its 
mythical or religious aspect he touches on very lightly ; the 
personification is very slight and perfectly transparent. 


1 Atharva-veda, xii. 1; Hymns of 5 Atharva-veda, xii. 1. 63; Hymns 
the Atharva-veda, translated by M. of the Atharva-veda, translated by 
Bloomfield (Oxford, 1897), pp. 197-205 M. Bloomfield, p. 207. 


(Sacred Books of the East, vol. xlii.). 8 Atharva-veda, xii. 1. 15, 16,.17, 
2 J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, 22; Hymns of the Atharva-veda, 

v. (London, 1884) p. 23. . translated by M. Bloomfield, p. 201. 
bg I AL ey 7s 1 Atharva-veda, xii. 1. 41; Hymns 


4 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology of the Atharva-veda, translated by 
(Strassburg, 1897), p. 83. M. Bloomfield, p. 204. 


Mother 
Earth t 
the dead 


back to her bosom. 


bosom. 


The Greek 
Earth- 
goddess, 
Gaia or Ge, 
not pro- 
minent in 
Greek 
religion. 


The 
Earth- 
goddess 
in Greek 


mythology: 


Hesiod’s 
account of 
her. 


318 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES  cuar. 


By a natural train of thought Mother Earth, who gives 


akes birth to men, is conceived to take her dead sons Hee to her 


In a funeral hymn of the Azg-veda the poet, 

addressing a dead man, speaks thus : 

‘* Betake thee to the lap of Earth the Mother, of Earth, far-spreading, 
very kind and gracious. 


Young dame, wool-soft unto the guerdon-giver, may she preserve thee 
Srom Destruction,” 


Then turning to Earth herself, the poet proceeds : 


“* eave thyself, Earth, nor press thee downward heavily: afford him 


easy access, gently tending him. 
Earth, as a mother wraps her skirt about her child, so cover him,?? 


§ 2. The Worship of Earth among the Anctent Greeks* 


In ancient Greece, as in ancient India, the worship of 
Earth as a goddess was not an important element of the 
national religion, unless indeed we regard Demeter as an 
Earth-goddess, for unquestionably Demeter was one of the 
most important, as. well as among the most stately and 
beautiful, figures in the Greek pantheon. But she was a 
goddess of the corn rather than of the earth. The true 
Greek goddess of the Earth was Gaia or Ge, whose name 
means nothing but the actual material earth, and is con- 
stantly used in that sense by Greek writers from the earliest 
to the latest times. Hence in her case the personification 
is open and unambiguous; the veil of mythic fancy is too 
thin and transparent to conceal the physical basis of the 
goddess. 

But if the Earth-goddess never received a large share of 
Greek worship, she played an important part in the scheme 
of Greek mythology as expounded by the poet Hesiod in 
his Theogony. According to him, Broad-bosomed Earth, as 


1 Rig-veda, x. 18. 10, 11; Aymns 
of the Rigveda, translated by R. T. H. 
Griffith, vol. iv. p. 139. On this beauti- 
ful hymn, see H. Zimmer, A/tindisches 
Leben (Berlin, 1879), pp. 404-407. 

2 For details on this subject, see 
Preller - Robert, Grzechische Mytho- 
logie*, i. (Berlin, 1894), Pp. 632 599. ; 

rexiefe  5:0s0 er Grain. els WV oe Bas 
Roscher’s Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der 


grtiechischen und rimischen Mythologie, 


i. 1566; Eitrem, s.v. ‘*Gaia”, in Pauly- 
Wissowa, Real-Encyklopadie der clas- 
sischen Altertumswissenschaft, vii. 1. 
467 sqgg.; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the 
Greek States, iii. 1 599., 307 599. 


3 See 7The Golden Bough, Part V. 
Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, 


i. 35 599. 


Ee | 


vt WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 319 


he calls her, was the first being that came into existence 
after the primeval chaos. She was older than the sky, 
indeed she gave birth to the starry sky, he was her first- 
born ; and afterwards she brought forth the mountains and 
the sea. All these, apparently, she was thought to have 
produced of herself without the assistance of any male power. 
But thereafter, she mated with the Sky, her own offspring, 
and from their union were born Ocean and the Titans.’ 
For the poet distinguished the sea, by which he probably 
meant the Mediterranean, from the great ocean lying beyond 
the Pillars of Hercules, of which adventurous mariners had 
brought back tales of wonder to the Greeks of the home- 
land, and of which rumours had reached even the poet- 
husbandman Hesiod among the quiet dells of Helicon. Yet 
husbandman as he was, and author of the oldest extant 
treatise on husbandry, Hesiod appears to have felt little 
tenderness or respect for the Earth-goddess on whom he 
depended for his livelihood ; perhaps the land about Ascra, The poet's 
his native town, was hard and stony, and yielded but aya ees 
scanty harvest to the plough and the sickle. Certainly he 
grumbled at Ascra, which he described as “a wretched 
village, bad in winter, disagreeable in summer, good at no 
time”.? It stood on the top of a hill, exposed to all the 
winds that blow; by the second century of our era the 
place had fallen into utter decay and nothing worth mention- 
ing remained in it but.a single tower. The solitary tower 
still crowns the summit of the hill, a far-seen landmark, and 
the hill-side is still stony and rugged.* So perhaps after all 
the bard had some ground for complaining of the niggardli- 
ness of the goddess and for paying her out in the uncompli- 
mentary verses which he wrote about her. Certainly he 
represents her in a very unamiable light as hard, cruel, 
and treacherous. For did she not instigate her offspring, 
the Titans, to attack and mutilate their own father while he, 
quite unsuspecting, lay quiet with her in bed? Did she not 
even provide the weapon with which the. dastardly outrage 
was perpetrated on the deity by his unnatural son ? * 


1 Hesiod, Theogony, 116-138. commentary (vol. v. pp. 149 sg.). 
2 Hesiod, Works and Days, 639 sq. 4 Hesiod, Zheogony, 159-182. See 
3 Pausanias, ix. 29. 2, with my above, pp. 36 sg. 


The 
Homeric 
hymn to 
Earth, the 
Mother of 
All. 


Plutarch on 
the worship 
of Earth. 


Antiquity 
of the 
worship of 
Earth in 
Greece. 


320 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES cnap. 


A far more favourable portrait of the Earth-goddess, 
and one which probably harmonized much better with Greek 
notions and sentiments about her, is painted by the author 
of the Homeric hymn addressed to “ Earth, the Mother of 
All”. In English it runs thus: 


“PU sing of Earth, Mother of All, of her the firm-founded, 
Eldest of beings, her who feeds all that tn the world exists ; 
All things that go upon the sacred land and on the sea, 
And all that fly, all they are fed from thy bounty. 
By thee, O Queen, are men blessed tn their children, blessed in their 
crops ; 

Thine it ts to give life and to take it back 

From mortal men. Happy ts he whom thou tn heart 
Dost honour graciously; he hath all things in plenty. 
For him his fruitful land is big with corn, and his meads 
Abound in cattle, and his house ts full of good things. 
Such men do rule in righteousness a city of fair women. 
Great wealth and riches watt on them ; 

Thetr sons exult tn joyance ever new ; 

In florid troops their maidens blithesomely — 

Do sport and skip about the meadows lush with flowers. 
Such are they whom thou dost honour, Goddess revered, 
O bounteous Spirit. 

Flatl, Mother of Gods, Spouse of the Starry Sky, 

And graciously for this my song bestow on me 

Substance enough for heart's ease. So shall I not forget 
To hymn thee in another lay.” » 


Hundreds of years.later a like feeling of reverence and 
affection for the Earth-goddess was expressed by Plutarch 
with that simple piety and transparent sincerity which 
characterize all the writings of that excellent and lovable 
man. He says: “Fire receives barbaric honours among 
the Medes and Assyrians, who out of fear think to acquit 
themselves of the obligations of religion by worshipping the 
destructive rather than the venerable aspects of nature; but 
the name of Earth is dear, I ween, and precious to every 
Greek, and it is a custom handed down to us by our ella 
to revere her like any other deity ”.? 

But if in the historical ages of Greece the public worship 
of Earth was comparatively rare and unimportant, there are 
some grounds for thinking that it must have been very 


1 Homeric Hymns, xxx. (pp. 296 s¢., 2 Plutarch, De face in orbe lunae, 
ed. Allen and Sikes). Xxli. 14, 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 321 


ancient. The three great seats of the national religion were The 
Dodona, Delphi, and Olympia, and at all of them the for" % 


worship of the Earth-goddess would seem to have been Dodona. 
established in antiquity. At Dodona the main objects of 
religious reverence were certainly Zeus and his oracular oak, 
but side by side with them the Earth-goddess appears to 
have shared the homage of the pilgrims who flocked to the 
shrine. For the priestesses, who perhaps bore the title of 
Doves, are said to have chanted the verses : 

“* Zeus was, Zeus ts, Zeus shall be: O great Zeus / 

The Earth yields frutts, therefore glorify Mother Earth” + 

At Delphi the oracle is said to have belonged to Poseidon Tne oracle 
and Earth long before it was taken over by Apollo, and the ae * 
tradition ran that the Earth-goddess delivered her oracles in 
person, while Poseidon employed a mere human being as 
his interpreter and intermediary.” In a hymn to Apollo, 
which was discovered by the French in their excava- 
tions at Delphi, there is an allusion to the peaceful dis- 
placement of Earth by Apollo when he came from Tempe 
to take possession of the oracle.» The poet Aeschylus, a 
high authority on the religious traditions of his country, 
represents the Pythian priestess at Delphi as praying first 
of all to Earth, and calling her the first who ever gave 
oracles at the shrine.* Among her predictions she is said 
to have prophesied that Cronus would be dethroned by his 
own son, that Zeus would vanquish the Titans with the help 
of the Cvclopes, and that Metis would bear a son who 
should be the lord of heaven. Down to the time of Plutarch 
the ancient goddess had a sacred precinct at Delphi to the 
south of the great temple of Apollo.® The frowning cliffs 
above Delphi and the deep glen below might naturally 
-mark out the spot as a fit seat for a sanctuary and oracle 
of Earth. Nowhere else in Greece, unless it be at the foot 


with a human voice, 


1 Pausanias, x. 12, 10, Pausanias 
here assumes that the priestesses were 
called Doves, But perhaps he mis- 
understood a tradition, recorded by 
Herodotus (ii. 55), that the oracle -at 
Dodona was founded in obedience to 
the bidding of a black dove, which 
flew from Thebes in Egypt to Dodona, 
and there, perching on an oak, spoke 


* VOL. I 


Compare my 
note on Pausanias, vil. 21. 2 (vol. iv. 
pp. 149 sq.). 

2 Pausanias, x. 5. 6. 

3 Bulletin de Correspondance Hellé- 
nigue, xvii. (1893) p. 566. 

* Aeschylus, Aumenides, 1 sq. 

erApollodorus, 4215, 1.2213 13-3,.0. 

6 Plutarch, De Pythiae oracults, 17. 
Vy 


Altars and 
sanctuaries 
of Earth in 
Greece, 


322 WORSHIP OF “EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES Scuar 


of the tremendous precipices down which the water of the | 


Styx falls or dribbles in Arcadia, has Nature thus wrought 
as with an artist's hand to impress on the spectator’s mind 
so deep a sense of awe and solemnity. Indeed, in antiquity 
some philosophers.attempted to explain the oracle at Delphi 
by a theory that the priestess was inspired by certain 
physical exhalations or vapours due to the nature and 
configuration of the ground, and they traced the decadence 
of the oracle in their own time to a decrease or cessation of 
the exhalations consequent on changes in the crust of the 
earth brought about by natural causes, such as heavy rains, 
thunderbolts, and above all, earthquakes. . Plutarch, who 
seems to have inclined to accept this view, compares the 
exhaustion of the oracular vein to the exhaustion of the 
silver mines in Attica, and of the copper mines in Euboea, 
and to the frequent intermittence in the flow of hot 
springs. On this attempt to reconcile science with religion 
one of the interlocutors in Cicero’s dialogue on divination 
pours scorn. ‘“ You might think”, says he, “that they were 
talking of wine or pickles, which go off with time; but what 
length of time can wear out a power divine? ”’ 

In the great sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia there was an 
altar of the Earth-goddess made of ashes, and the tradition 
ran that of old the goddess had an oracle on the spot.’ 
Some miles from the site of the ancient Aégae in Achaia 
there was a sanctuary of Earth, who here bore the title of 
Broad-bosomed. At this sanctuary an oracle of Earth sub- 
sisted down to the second century of our era. The priestess 
drank bull’s blood, and under its influence descended into 
the oracular cave. She was bound to remain chaste during 
her tenure of office, and before she entered on it she might 
not have known more than one man. The bull’s blood 
which inspired a chaste priestess was supposed to act like 
poison on one who had not kept her vow.® Similarly, the 
prophetess of Apollo Diradiotes at Argos drank the blood 
of a sacrificial lamb once a month as a means of inspira- 
tion before she prophesied in the name of the god. The 


1 Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, 3 Pausanias, vii. 25. 133 Pliny, 
40 sgqg.; Cicero, De divinatione,i. 19. Nat, Hist. xxviii. 147. The two 
30: \er 30.079; Jes eats accounts supplement each other. 


2 Pausanias, v. 14. 10, 


eS 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIEN GREEKS 323 


lamb was sacrificed by night, and the prophetess, like the 
priestess of Earth near Aegae, had to abstain from all 
intercourse with the other sex.! At Sparta there were two 
sanctuaries of Earth.” There was an altar to Earth at 
Tegea in Arcadia,*> and another at Phlya in Attica, 
where she bore the title of the Great Goddess.* [In 
the great sanctuary of Olympian Zeus at Athens, where 
the lofty columns which have survived the wreck of ages 
are among the most imposing monuments of ancient 
Greece, there was a precinct of Olympian Earth, where 
the ground was cloven to the depth of a cubit. Tradition 
ran that in Deucalion’s time the water of the great 
flood, which submerged almost the whole of Greece, all 
flowed away down this seemingly insignificant drain.’ This 
sanctuary of Earth is mentioned by Thucydides as one proof 
of the antiquity of the city in that quarter.° Thus, if the 
shrines of the Earth-goddess were neither numerous nor 
splendid, the traditions associated with them point to the 
great age of her worship in Greece. Perhaps the Greeks 
took it over from the aborigines whom they conquered or 
exterminated. | 
About the manner of the worship. which they offered Mode of 

to her we know very little. The victims sacrificed to her “os”? 


of Earth 
would seem to have been black. In Hoiner we read of the in Greece. 


sacrifice of a black ewe lamb to Earth, and of a white male cael 
lamb to the Sun:’ black yearling lambs were sacrificed sacrificed 
to Subterranean (Chthonian) Earth and Subterranean a 
(Chthonian) Zeus for the crops on the twelfth day of the 
month Lenaeon in the island of Myconos ;° and at Marathon 

a goat entirely black was sacrificed to Earth “at the oracle” 

on the tenth day of the month Elaphebolion, and a cow in 

calf was offered to her “among the acres” at another time 


of the year, but the colour of the cow is not mentioned.” 


1 Pausanias, il. 24. I. iii. p. 1743 Ch. Michel, Aecaer? ad’ /n- 
2 Pausanias, ill. II. 9, iii. 12. 8. scriptions Grecques (Bruxelles, 1900), 
3 Pausanias, vill. 48. 8. No. 714, p. 616; J. de Prott, L. Ziehen, 
4 Pausanias, 1: 31. 4. Leges Graecorum Sacrae(Lipsiae, 1896—- 
6 Pausanias, 1.0.18. 7. “4 1906), No. 4, vol. i. p. 14. 

6 Thucydides, ii. 15. 

7 Homer, ///ad, iii. 103 sg. Be Pe Menebrolty le Lienen,.eces 


8 G. Dittenberger, Sy/loge /nscrip- Graecorum Sacrae, No, 26, vol. 1. 
tionum Graecarum*, No. 1024, vol.  p, 48, col, B. 


Earth 
the Fruit- 
bearing. 


Earth 
praying for 
rain. 


Earth the 
Nursing- 
Mother. 


324 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES. *CHAP: 


The sacrifice offered to her for the crops in Myconos 
proves that she was supposed to quicken the seed in 
the ground, which was a very natural function for an 
Earth-goddess to perform. The same inference may be 
drawn from the epithet, Fruit-bearing, which was applied to 
her both at Athens and at Cyzicus. At Athens the name 
of the goddess with this epithet is engraved on the rock 
of the Acropolis, and the inscription, which is still legible, 
informs us that it was carved in compliance with an oracle.' 
Near this inscription on the Acropolis there was an image 
of Earth praying to Zeus for rain,” from which we may 
perhaps infer that the goddess was invoked to intercede 
with Zeus for rain in time of drought. The image may 
have represented her in the act of emerging from the rock 
and stretching her arms upward, while a great part of her 
body remained under ground. In this attitude she is often 
depicted on Greek vases and on a well-known terra-cotta 
relief, in which the goddess is represented with her head and 
shoulders only above ground, holding up the infant Erich- 
thonius to his mother Athene in presence of Poseidon, whose 
fishy tail gives him the appearance of a merman.® The 
conception of Earth as a power able both to fertilize the 
ground and to bestow offspring on men appears to be 
indicated by her association with Green Demeter, and -by 
the epithet of Nursing-mother (Kourotrophos) bestowed on 
her at a sanctuary which was dedicated to her and to Green 
Demeter, near the entrance to the Acropolis at Athens.* 
Erichthonius is said to have been born from the earth, and 
very appropriately he is reported to have been the first to 
sacrifice to the Earth-goddess under the title of Nursing- 
mother, and to set up an altar to her on the Acropolis out 
of gratitude for his upbringing.» The Athenian lads used 


Denkmaler des 


1 Corpus Inscriptionum Alticarum, 
it, No. 166; Es.S,-Roberts and 
E. A. Gardner, /r¢roduction to Greek 
Epigraphy, Part II.(Cambridge, 1905), 
No. 245, pp. 465 sg. The epithet 
Fruit-bearing applied to Earth at 
Cyzicus is known from an inscription. 
See L. R. Farnell, Czlts of the Greek 
States, iv. 91, quoting Bulletin de 
Correspondance hellénique, 1882, p.454. 

2 Pausanias, i. 24. 3. 


“ A. Baumeister, 
klassischen Altertums, i. 492, fig. 536 ; 
W. H. Roscher, dusfihrliches Lexikon 
der griechischen und romischen Mytho- 
logie, i. coll. 1577-1578, fig. 2. As to 
the legend of the birth of Erichthonius 
from the earth, see Apollodorus, iii. 
14. 6. 


4 Pausanias, i. 22. 3. 


5 Suidas, s.v. Kouporpddos. 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 325 


to sacrifice to the Nursing-mother on the Acropolis ;' and 


in a fragmentary inscription found on the Acropolis the 
sacrifice of a pig to Earth the Nursing-mother appears to be 
prescribed.” Aristophanes represents the Athenian women 
praying to Demeter and Earth the Nursing-mother at 
the festival of the Thesmophoria.? Not far from the joint 
sanctuary of Earth and Green Demeter, whose epithet of 
Green refers to the green sprouting corn, there was a sanc- 
tuary of the Furies near the Areopagus, and in it were 
statues of Earth, Pluto, and Hermes. Here sacrifices were 
offered both by Athenians and foreigners, but especially 
by persons who had been acquitted at’ the bar of the 
Areopagus.* Curiously enough, persons who had_ been 
wrongly supposed to be dead, and for whom funeral rites 
had been performed, were not allowed to enter this sanctuary 
~of the Furies.” 

The Earth-goddess was often invoked in solemn oaths, 
along with other deities, especially Zeus and the Sun, to 
witness the truth of an asseveration. Thus when Agamemnon 
solemnly swore that he had not approached Briseis while 
she was his prisoner, he sacrificed a boar to Zeus, and 
looking up to heaven called upon Zeus, the Earth, the Sun, 
and the Furies to be his witnesses that he did not lie.® 
And in the Odyssey Calypso swears to Ulysses by “ Earth, 
and the wide Sky above, and the down-trickling water of 
Styx” that she meant him’no harm.’ An Aetolian oath 
was by Zeus, the Earth, and the Sun.& In Chersonesus, 
a Greek city of the Crimea, the citizens took an oath of 
loyalty to their city, swearing by Zeus, the Earth, the Sun, 
the Virgin, the gods and goddesses of Olympus, and the 
heroes who protected the city and the country and the 
walls. Ina treaty of alliance between the cities of Drerus 


1 Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, 
ii, No. 481, lines 58 sg. 

2 Corpus Inscriptionum Alticarum, 
i. No.. 4. 


3 Aristophanes, Z7hesmophor. 297 
59q- ee 

4 Pausanias, i. 28. 6. 

5 Hesychius, s.v.  Aevrepdrorpos, 


citing Polemo as his authority. 
6 Homer, //éad, xix. 252-265. 
7 Homer, Odyssey, v. 184-187. 


SES 75 70 


8 G, Dittenberger, Sylloge Juscrip- 
tionum Graecarum*, No, 1212, vol. 
iii, p. 3573 Ch. Michel; Recaezl a’ /n- 
scriptions Grecques, No. 1421, p. 939. 

9 G. Dittenberger, Sy//loge /nscrip- 
tionum Graecarum%, No. 360, vol. i. 
pp. 585, 586; Ch. Michel, ecuer/ 
a Inscriptions Grecques, No, 1316, pp. 
The Virgin was a deity 
worshipped in Chersonesus, where she 
had a sanctuary. See Strabo, vii. 4. 2, 


Earth 
invoked in 
oaths. 


326 WORSHIP. OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES: ~Cuar. 


and Cnossus in Crete the allies took a tremendous oath of 
fidelity by Hestia of the Prytaneum, and Zeus (Den) of the 
Market-place, and Tallaean Zeus (Den), and the Delphinian © 
Apollo, and Athene the Guardian of the City, and the 

Poetian Apollo, and Latona, and Artemis, and Ares, and 
Aphrodite, and Hermes, and the Sun, and Britomartis, and 
Phoenix, and Amphiona, and the Earth, and the Sky, and 
the heroes, and the heroines, and the springs, and the rivers, 
and all the gods and goddesses, that they would never and 
by no manner of means be friendly to the Lyttians, neither 
by night nor by day, but that on the contrary they would 
do all the harm they possibly could to the city of the 
Lyttians.. About the year 244 B.C. the people of Magnesia 
concluded a treaty of alliance with Smyrna and King 
Seleucus II., and swore to observe it faithfully, calling on 
Zeus, the Earth, the Sun, Ares, Warlike Athene, Tauropolus, 
the Sipylene Mother, Apollo of Panda, all the other gods 
and goddesses, and the Fortune of King Seleucus, to be their 
witnesses. The people of Smyrna on their part swore in 
much the same terms to observe the treaty, but in the list of 
deities by whom they swore they omitted Apollo in Panda 
and the Fortune of King Seleucus, substituting Stratonicean 
Aphrodite in their room.*. The mercenary troops of 
Eumenes I., King of Pergamum, took an oath of loyalty 
to him, swearing by Zeus, the Earth, the Sun, Poseidon, 
Demeter, Ares, Warlike Athene, Tauropolus, and all the 
other gods and goddesses ; and the king swore by the same 
deities to observe good faith to the troops.’ In or about the 
year 3 B.C. the Paphlagonians swore fealty to the Emperor 
Augustus by Zeus, the Earth, the Sun, all the gods and 


goddesses, and -also by the 


p. 308. She hadan altar on the acropolis 
of Chersonesus, and the people cele- 
brated in her honour a festival which 
included a procession. See G, Ditten- 
berger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graec- 
arum%, No. 709, vol, iii. pp. 344, 345. 
1G. Dittenberger, Sy//oge Tnscrip- 
tionum Graecarum >, No. 527, vol. i. 
pp. 769-771; Ch. Michel, Aecwer? 
a’ Inscriptions Grecques, No..23, pp. 28 
sq.; P. Cauer, Delectus Inscriptionum 
Graecarum*, No. 121, pp. 77 sg. 


Emperor himself.* | Thus in 


2 W. Dittenberger, Ovzentis Graect 
Inscriptiones Selectae (Lipsiae, 1903- 
1905), No, 229, vol. i. pp. 371, 372. 

3 W. Dittenberger, Orzentis Graect 
Inscriptiones Selectae, No, 266, vol. i. 
pp. 438-440; Ch. Michel, Reczez/ a’ Zn- 
scriptions Grecques, No. 15, pp. 9 sg. 

4 W. Dittenberger, Orientis Craeci 
Inscriptiones Selectae, No. 532, vol. ii. 
pp. 198 sg. ; H. Dessau, /scriptiones 
Latinae Selectae, No. 8781, vol. ii. 
p. IOIO, 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 327 


Greek-speaking lands the old oath by Zeus, the Earth, and the 
Sun persisted from the Homeric age down to imperial times. 


§ 3. The Worship of Earth among the Ancient Romans? 


The ancient Romans, like the ancient Greeks, personified 
and worshipped the Earth as a Mother Goddess; but 
though her worship was doubtless very ancient, the evidence 
for its observance in Rome and Italy is very scanty; the 
goddess would seem to have been pushed into the back- 
ground by other and more popular deities, above all by the 
Sky-god Jupiter, and by the Corn-goddess Ceres, with 
whom she was often confounded.” Her proper name was 
Tellus,> which is also a common Latin noun signifying 
“earth”; but in later times she was more usually invoked 
under the name of Terra or Terra Mater,* that is, “ Mother 
Earth,” ¢erra being practically synonymous with ¢e//us in the 
sense of “carth”. Apparently she personified, not so much 
the whole earth as, primarily, the fruitful field to which men 
owe their food and therefore their life, and, secondarily, 
the burial ground which receives their bodies after death. 
The poet Lucretius sums up the conception of the Earth- 
mother in her double aspect in a striking phrase by saying 
that she is thought to be “the universal parent and the 
common tomb”.? So the older poet Ennius said that the 
Earth “gave birth to all nations and takes them back 
again”.® Again, in an epitaph on a tomb it is said that, 

1 For details, see L. Preller, Romesche 
Mythologie® (Berlin, 1881—1883), ii. 
2 syg.; G. Wissowa, Religion und 


Aultus der Rémer* (Munich, 1912), 
DoaLOhwga 7a... rellus” in WIT. 


3960, 5050136, 8008. According to 
Servius (on Virgil, dev. 1.171), Zellus 
was properly the name of the goddess. 
and fervra the name of the element 
of earth. As to the lateness of the 


Roscher’s Ausftihrliches Lexikon der 
griechischen und romischen Mythologie, 
V. 331 svg. 

2 Compare G. Wissowa, 5.v.‘Tellus”, 
in W. H.. Roscher’s Aus/ihrliches 
Lextkon der griechischen und romischen 
Mythologie, Vv. 339. 

3-H. Dessau, /ascriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, Nos. 1954, 3956, 3957, 3958, 
3959, 7994. 

4H. Dessau, /mscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, Nos. 1522, 3950, 3951-3954, 


designation Zerra Afatex compared to 
the earlier Ze//us or Tellus Mater, see 
Ll. Preller, Romische Alythologte%, ii, 2 
note*; G. Wissowa, s.z. ‘* Tellus ”’, 
in W. H. Roscher’s dAusftihrliches 
Lextkon der griechischen und romischen 
Mythologie, V. 332. 

5 Lucretius, v. 259, ‘‘ Omniparens 
eadem rerum commune sepulcrum”, 

6 Ennius, quoted by Varro, De 
lingua latina, v. 64, ‘* Terris gentis 
omnis peperit et resumil denuo”, 


Scanty 


evidence 


of the 
worship of 
Earth in 
Rome and 
Italy. 


Her nanies, 
Tellus and 
Terra. 


Pregnant 
sow sacri- 
ticed to her. 


Earth 
coupled 
with the 
Sky and 
Jupiter. 


328 WORSHIP. OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES 


CHAP. 


“the bones which Earth produced she covers in the grave”.’ 
For the Earth was thought to be the source not only of 
vegetable but of animal life. In the ode composed by 
Horace to be sung at the Secular Games which Augustus 
celebrated in 17 B.C, the poet prays that “ Earth (Ze//us), 
fruitful in crops and cattle, may bestow on Ceres a crown of 
ears of corn”; and from an inscription containing an account 
of the Secular Games, which was found in the Field of Mars 
(Campus Martius) at Rome in 1890, we learn that on this 
occasion the goddess was invoked under the title of Mother 
Earth (Zerra Mater) and that a sow big with young was 
sacrificed to her.’ Again, in an oath of loyalty to Rome, 
which the Italians took in g1I B.C, they swore by Capito- 
line Jupiter, by the Roman Vesta, by Mars, by the Sun, 
and by “Earth, the benefactress both of animals and 
plants ”.4 

In an inscription found at Rome mention is made of a 
sanctuary dedicated to the Eternal Sky, to Mother Earth, and 
to Mercury Menestrator.2 At the beginning of his treatise 
on agriculture, Varro, the greatest of Koman antiquaries, tells 
us that he will invoke the twelve Confederate Gods (dez 
consentes), not those twelve gods, male and female, whose 
gilded statues adorned the forum, but the twelve gods who 
were the special patrons of farming. Among them he 
invokes in the first place Jupiter and Earth. (Zed/us) because 
they, in their respective spheres of sky and earth (derra), 
contain all the fruits of husbandry ; therefore, he proceeds, 
because they are called the Great Parents, Jupiter is named 
Father, and Earth (Zée/us) is named Mother.’ In this 
passage, just as Tellus is plainly’a personification of the 
physical earth, so Jupiter is plainly a personification of the 
physical sky. Thus Varro is at one with the writer of the 
inscription, in which, as we have just seen, Mother Earth is 


' H. Dessau, Juscriptiones Latinae 


tres,i. 1.5. In this passage the MSS, 
Selectae, No. 7994. 


read Zellus terra mater. But terra 


2 Horace, Carmen Saeculare, 29 sq. 

3-H, Dessau, /nscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, No. 5050 1°6, 

4 Diodorus Siculus, xxxvii. 11. 

6 HI. Dessau, /uscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, No. 3950. 


8 Varro, Rerum rusticarum lori 


appears to be a gloss on Ze/lus, as H. 
Jordan observed (L. Preller, Rémische 
Mythologie, ii, 2 note”). It is rightly 
omitted by G. Wissowa, av, ‘Tellus ”, 
in W. H. Roscher’s Ausfihrliches 
Lexthon der griechischen und rimischen 
Mythologie, v. 332. 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 329 


coupled with the Eternal Sky; and Varro more than hints 
at the ancient myth of the marriage of Sky and Earth, 
though perhaps his orthodox Roman faith prevented him 
from expressly substituting Earth for Jupiter’s legitimate 
wife Juno. A similar collocation of Jupiter and Earth 
occurs in the solemn form of imprecation in which a Roman 
general devoted to destruction, the cities, lands, armies, and 
people of the enemy, for at the close of the curse he called 
on Mother Earth (Ze//us) and Jupiter to be his witnesses ; 
and when he named Earth, he touched the earth with his 
hands; and when he named Jupiter, he raised his hands 
towards the sky.’ Here, again, the identification of Jupiter 
as a Sky-god is rendered indubitable by the accompanying 
gesture, and it is remarkable that in this fearful imprecation 
Mother Earth takes precedence of the Sky-god, perhaps with 
reference to the fate of the foemen who might be expected 
soon to return to the bosom of their Mother, ashes to ashes, 
dust to dust. 

| Elsewhere Varro tells us that the pontiffs used to 
sacrifice to four deities, namely Earth (Ze/us), Tellumo, 
Altor, and Rusor.” Here Tellumo is apparently a male 
Earth-god, the husband of the Earth-goddess. Certainly 
his name appears to be only a masculine form of Tellus, 
“the earth”. Varro himself saw this and explained the two 
deities as personifications of the earth in its twofold aspect, 
first as a male who produces the seeds ( 7e//uimo), and second 
as a female who receives and nourishes them (7¢//us).2 In 
a late writer a masculine deity Tellurus, no doubt equivalent 
to Tellumo, is mentioned along with Ceres.* As to the 
deity Altor, whom the pontiffs’ associated with Earth 


1 Macrobius, Saturn, iii, 9. 9-12. 

2 Varro, quoted by Augustine, De 
ctuitate Det, vil. 23. The passages 
of Varro bearing on the worship of 
Earth (Ze//us) are collected by R. 
Agahd, A/. Terenti Varronts Anti- 
guttatum Rerum Divinarum libri i. 
xiv. xv. xvi. (Leipzig, 1898) pp. 212- 
214. 

3 Varro, quoted by Augustine, De 
ctvitate Det, vii. 23, ‘* Una ecademgue 
terra habet geminam vim, -et mascu- 
linam, quod semina producat ; et femt- 
nina, guod rectptat atgue enutriat”. 


Compare Augustine, De czvitate Dei, 
iv. 10. According to C. Pauli, Tellumo 
is an Etruscan deity. See W. H. 
Roscher, Ausfihrliches Lexikon der 
griechischen und rimischen Mythologie, 
¥i01320, 75.25 1 Lellumo™, 


4 Martianus Capella, De nuptiz's 


Philologiae et Mercurit, i. 49, ‘‘ Cor-. 


rogantur ex proxima [regtone] trans- 
cursts conjugum regum Ceres Tellurus 
Terraeque pater Vulcanus et Gentus”’. 
Here Zerraegue pater is perhaps a 
gloss on Tellurus. 


Sacrifices 
offered by 
the pontiffs 
to Earth 
(Tellus) 
and 
Tellumo. 


The Earth- 
goddess 
(Tellus or 
Terra) 
associated 
with Ceres, 
the Corn- 
goddess, 
Sacrifices 
to the two 
goddesses 
at the 
festival 

of sowing. 


330 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES CHap. 


(Zellus) and Tellumo, he was no doubt rightly interpreted 
by Varro to mean the Nourisher, from the verb a/ere, to 
nourish, “because all things that are born are nourished 
from the earth”. The fourth deity Rusor was explained by 
Varro to signify Reverser, because all things revert or 
revolve back again to the same place.’ 

Naturally enough the Earth-goddess Tellus or Terra 
was often associated with the Corn-goddess Ceres. The 
two are neatly compared and distinguished by Ovid, who 
says that the Corn-goddess makes the seeds to grow, while 
the Earth-goddess gives them a place in which to grow.’ 
Hence certain sacrifices were offered to them jointly. One 
such sacrifice took place at the festival of sowing. The 
most approved time for the winter sowing was from the 
autumnal equinox in September till the winter solstice in 
December.® The festival of sowing followed in January, 
after the seed had been committed to the ground,* and its 
aim was no doubt to foster the growth of the seedlings.” 
No fixed day was appointed for it in the calendar; it was a 
moveable feast, the time for which varied from year to year 
with the state of the season and the weather. The day for 
the beginning of the festival was appointed in each year 
by the pontiffs." The offering to the two goddesses con- 
sisted of spelt and the inward parts of a sow big with young.® 
The festival comprised two days which were separated from 
each other, curiously enough,.by an interval of seven days. 
The first of the two days was dedicated to the Earth-goddess 


Tellus or Terra, the second 


1 Varro, quoted by Augustine, De 
ctvttate Det, vii. 23, ‘** Altort quare ? 
Quod ex terra, inguit, aluntur omnia 
quae nata sunt. Rusort guare? Quod 
rursus, inguit, cuncta eodem revolvun- 
tur”. As to these names, see G. 
Wissowa, s.v. ‘* Tellus”, in W. H. 
Roscher’s, dusfihrliches Lextkon der 
griechischen und romischen Mythologie, 
Vv. 333, who prefers to connect Rusor 
with the same root as ruma, rumen, 
Rumina. 

2 Ovid, Fasti, i. 673 sg., ‘* Offictum 
commune Ceres et Terra tuentur: Haec 
praebet causam frugibus, tlla locum”. 
Twolines before the poet used 7e//usgue 


was dedicated to the Corn- 


Ceresque in precisely the same sense as 
Ceres et Terra, thus proving that he re- 
garded Ze//us and 7ervu assynonymous, 

3 Varro, Rerum rusticarum libri tres, 
i. 343 Pliny, Mat. Ast. xviii. 201-204; 
Geoponica, ii. 14. 

4 Ovid, Fastz, i. 657-662. 

5 Festus, De verborum significatione, 
s.v. **Sementivae”’, p. 455, ed. Lindsay. 

6 Ovid, Fastz, i. 657-662; Joannes 
Lydus, De mensitbus, iii. 6, ed, Bekker: 
Macrobius, Saturn, i. 16. 6; Festus, 
De verborum significatione, s.v. ** Con- 
ceptivae ”, p. 55, ed. Lindsay. 

7 Varro, De lingua latina, vi. 26. 

8 Ovid, Fastz, i. 671 sg. 


vi WORSH/P.OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 331 

Twelve 
subordi- 
nate 
deities of 
agriculture, 


goddess Ceres.’ On this second day, probably, the Flamen 
Cerialis offered to Earth (7e//us) and Ceres jointly a sacrifice, 
at which he invoked the help of twelve subordinate deities, 
each concerned with a special department of agriculture, 
and all of them together making up a complete cycle of the 
operations of husbandry, from the first breaking up of the 
fallow under the plough to the reaping, gathering into the 
barn, and the taking of corn from the granary.” These 
twelve lubbardly fiends, with their uncouth names, furnish a 
good instance of the minute scrupulosity of the Roman 
religious mind, which, far from content with committing the 
direction of affairs to a few great gods, relieved these over- 
worked deities of a great part of their functions by installing 
a complete bureaucracy of minor divinities, whose special 
business it was to superintend the whole circle of human life 
down to its pettiest and most seemingly insignificant details. 
Indeed, deities multiplied at such a rate that a Roman 
philosopher calculated that the population of heaven 
exceeded that of earth,* and a Roman wench complained 
that she could not walk the streets in pursuit of business 
without knocking up against a god much oftener than against 
a man.” Even the twelve minor divinities, whom _ the Supple- 
Flamen Cerialis invoked at the festival of sowing, did not ™°my) 


of female 


suffice to bring the corn to maturity ; they were all males, divinities 
d Augustine furnish it! lementary list of Gyn 
an ugustine furnishes us with a supplementary list of \ith foster. 


ing th 
1 Joannes Lydus, De menstbus, iv. Compare G. Wissowa, s.v. ‘‘ Tellus”, Peta of 
6 ed. Bekker. According to this in W. H. Roscher’s Aumsfihrliches pe 


author, the first day was dedicated to 
Demeter in her character of Earth 
(Anunrpt, olov TH yn TH Umrodexoueryn 
Tovs Kapmovs), but we must correct this 
statement hy the evidence of Ovid, 
Fasti,i.671, ‘‘Placentur frugum matres 
Lellusque Ceresgue”. So Wissowa, S.v. 
‘‘Tellus”, in W. H. Roscher’s Azes- 
fithrliches Lexikon der griechischen. 
und romischen Mythologie, v. 334. 

2 Servius, on Virgil, Georg. i. 21, 
“‘ Fabius Pictor hos deos enumerat, quos 
envocat Klamen, sacrum Cereale factens 
Tellurit et Cerert: Vervactorem, Redara- 
torem [so we must read with Salmasius 
for the MS. Reparatorem), Inporcitorem, 
Insitorem, Obaratorem, Occatorem, Sar- 
ritorem, Subruncinatorem, Messorent, 
Convectorem,Conditorem, Promttorem’’. 


Lextkonder griechischen und rimischen 
My thologte, Vv. 334. Servius, or his au- 
thority Fabius Pictor, doesnot mention 
which of the Flamens was charged with 
the duty of offering this sacrifice to Earth 
and Ceres, but we may safely conclude 
that it was the Flamen Cerialis, whose 
existence at Rome is known from at 
least one inscription. See H. Dessau, 
Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, No. 1447, 
compare No. gorl. 

3 These minor divinities were the 
Di Indigites. For a formidable list 
of them see R. Peter, s.v. ‘‘ Indigita- 
menta”’, in W. H. Roscher’s dusfihr- 
liches Lexikon der griechtschen und 
romischen Mythologte, ii. 129 sgq. 

4 Pliny, Wat. Hes?.. ii: 16. 

5 Petronius, Satyrtcon, 16. 


The 
Fordicidia : 
sacrifice of 
pregnant’ 
cows to 
the Earth- 
goddess on 
April rsth. 


233 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES Ciiap. 


female divinities, whose duty it was to assist the growth of 
the corn at every stage of its development ; it would task 
a professional botanist to explain the nice distinctions 
between the various functions which they discharged. The 
Christian Father makes merry over the really excessive 
exuberance of the Roman deities, remarking, that while one 
man sufficed to act as door-porter, no less than three gods 
were required to do the same job, one of them being told off 
to look after the door, a second to take care of the hinges, and 
a third to keep the threshold in order.’ To such a degree 
of perfection did the Romans carry the principle of the 
division of labour in the sphere of religion. | 
Another sacrifice for the crops was offered to the 
Earth-goddess Tellus on the fifteenth of April. The victim 
sacrificed was a cow in calf; such a victim was called a 
bos forda; hence the festival bore the name of Fordzczdia, 
that is, the Killing of the Pregnant Cow.? These victims were 
sacrificed in all the thirty wards (curzae) of Rome and also by 
the pontiffs on the Capitol. No doubt a victim big with 
young was chosen with reference to the crops, in order that, 
by a sort of sympathetic magic, Earth's womb might teem 
with increase and yield an abundant harvest. A curious 
piece of ritual was performed at this sacrifice. The unborn 
calves were torn from the wombs of their mothers and burned 
to ashes, and these ashes, mixed with the blood of a horse and 
bean-stalks, were afterwards used by the Senior Vestal Virgin 
to purify the people at the shepherds’ festival of the Parilia, 
which fell six days later, on the twenty-first of April: On 
that day people repaired to the temple of Vesta, where the 
Senior Vestal distributed to them from the altar the mingled 
ashes, blood, and beanstalks. These they carried away to 
be used in the fumigations which formed a notable part of 
the rites. The poet Ovid, who describes the ritual in his 
valuable work on the Roman calendar, tells us that he himself 


1 Augustine, De czvitate Dei, iv. 8. 
2 Ovid, Fasti, iv. 629-634; Varro, 
De lingua, latina, vi. 15; Festus, De 


verborum significatione, s.v.‘* Fordicis”, 


p. 74, ed. Lindsay. Another form of 
the name of the festival was Fordicalia, 
flordicalia, or Hordicidia, the two latter 


being derived from horda, a different 
dialectical form of forda, ‘‘ pregnant”’. 
See Varro, Rerum rusticarum libri 
tres, i. 5.'-6 3) Festus, sv: ““ Horda:~ 
p- 91, ed. Lindsay; Joannes Lydus, 
De mensibus, iv. 49, ed. Bekker. 

3 Ovid, Fastz, iv. 635 sg. 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 333 


often came away from the altar with a handful of ashes and 
beanstalks." The blood, which was mingled with the ashes ‘rhe 
of the unborn calves to serve in fumigation, had also a Pood of 
curious history. On the fifteenth day of October in every horse 
year a chariot-race was run in the Field of Mars, and the avian 
right-hand horse of the victorious chariot was sacrificed to sacrifices. 
- Mars for the good of the crops. The animal’s tail was then 
cut off and carried by a runner at full speed to the King’s 
House in the Forum, where it arrived still reeking, and was 
held so that the blood dripped on the hearth or altar. It 
was this blood, shed just six months before, and now 
clotted and dry, which added its own purificatory virtue to 
that of the ashes of the calves and the beanstalks. The 
vulgar opinion was that the Romans, as descendants of the 
Trojans, sacrificed the horse out of revenge, because Troy 
had been betrayed and captured through the stratagem of 
the Wooden Horse.® On this the hard-headed Polybius 
observed sarcastically that by the same token all the bar- 
_barians must be descendants of the Trojans, since all, or 
almost all, of them sacrificed a horse before going to war, 
and drew omens from its death agony.* The true signifi- 
cance of the rite as designed to contribute to the fertility 
of the soil is intimated by the statement that the sacrifice 
was Offered for the sake of the crops, and that the severed 
head of the horse was encircled with a necklace of loaves.° 

But while a cow in calf was sacrificed to the Earth- Pregnant 
goddess at the Fordicidia in April, her regular victim was a seth ae 
sow big with young.’ We have seen that such victims were victims 
sacrificed to her at the festival of sowing and at the Secular Pace 

goddess. 


1 Ovid, Fast?, iv. 637-640, 721-735. 

2 Festus, De verborum siguitficatione, 
suv. ‘October equus” and ‘‘Panibus”, 
pp. 190, 191, 246, ed. Lindsay; Poly- 
bius, xii. 4B; Plutarch, Qzaestzones 
Romanae,g7. Compare W. Mannhardt, 
Mythologische Forschungen (Strassburg, 
1884), pp. 156s99.; The Golden hough, 
Part V. Spirzts of the Corn and of the 
Wild, ii, 42 sgg. Plutarch wrongly 
places the sacrifice on the Ides of 
December (13th December) instead of 
on the Ides of October (15th October). 
The name of the sacrifice (the October 
horse) would be conclusive against this 


date, and the exact day of October (the 
Ides) is mentioned by Festus (p. 246, 
ed, Lindsay). 

3 Festus, De significatione verborum, 
s.v. October equus”’, p. 190, ed. Lind- 
say; Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae, 
97- 

4 Polybius, xii. 4B. 

5 Festus, De verborum significatione, 
s.uv. ** Panibus”, p. 246, ed. Lindsay. 

8 Festus, De verborum significatione, 
s.v. ** Plena sue,’, p. 274, ed. Lindsay, 
p. 238, ed. Miiller; Arnobius, ddversus 
Nationes, vii. 22. 


334 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES cuav. 


Games.’ The true reason for sacrificing pregnant sows and 
in general pregnant victims to the Earth- “goddess was not 
that the pig is an animal destructive of the crops,” but that, 
as I have already pointed out in the case of the Fordicidia, 
a pregnant victim is supposed to communicate its own 
fertility to the ground and so to ensure a good harvest. 

The Earth- Another occasion on which the Earth-goddess appears 


anal to have been associated with the Corn-goddess Ceres was at 
associated a Sacrifice offered every year before the reaping began, or 


aes perhaps rather before it was lawful to partake of the new 


goddess fruits. The victim was a sow which received a special name 


G, in < ° . : 
cnerifice ar (Porca praecidanea), referring to its slaughter before the 


harvest. harvest, or before the eating of the new corn.* It is true 
that the writers who mention the sacrifice of a sow at this 
season speak of it as offered to the Corn-goddess Ceres alone, 
without any. mention of the Earth-goddess; but on the 
other hand we are told on the high authority of Varro that 
Sow a sow bearing the same title (forca praectdanea) must be 


neste: sacrificed jointly to the Earth-goddess (7Ze//us) and Ceres by 


goddess an heir when the person to whom he succeeded had not 


Aaah byan been duly buried ; otherwise the family would be ceremoni- 


heir when ally polluted.? This latter custom is mentioned also by two 


the person ‘ : 
hen ae of our authorities (Aulus Gellius and Festus) who record 


cape a the sacrifice of the sow before harvest; but again they 
been duly Mention only Ceres as the goddess to whom the sacrifice 


buried. —_ was offered. Festus says that if any person had not paid 
funeral rites to a dead man by casting a clod on his body, 
he had to sacrifice a sow (forca praecidanea) to Ceres before 
he might taste the new corn of the harvest.© To the same 


1 Above, pp. 328, 330. — 5 Varro, De vita Populi Romani, 
lib. ili., quoted by Nonius Marcellus, 


assigned by Festus (De verborum signi. Ve oar doctrina, 5.v. “* Prae- 
ficatione), in a mutilated passage re- Cidaneum”, p. 173, ed. Quicherat, 
stored by K. O. Miiller, p. 238; ** Quod humatus non sit, heredi porca 


compare za., p. 274, ed, Lindsay. praccidanea suscipienda Telluri et 
. Cerert: aliter familia pura non est”. 


6 Festus, De verborum sionificatione, 
p. 250, ed. Lindsay, ‘‘ Pruectdanea agna 
ahi vocabatur, quae ante alias caedebatur. 
tates ipsius . Item porca, quae Cerert mactabatur ab 

‘4 Cato, De agrd cultura, cxxxiv. 1;  €0, gut mortuo justa non fecisset, id 
Aulus Gellius, iv. 6. 8; Festus, De est glebam non objecisset, guia mos erat 
verborum stenificatione, PP. 242, 243, ets zd facere, priusguam novas fruges 
250, ed, Lindsay. gustarent”. 


2 This seems to be the reason 


3 This is recognized by Arnobius, 
Adversus Nationes, vii. 22, ** Tellurt 
gravidas atgue fetas 0b honorem fecundi- 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 335 


effect Aulus Gellius declares that the sacrifice of the sow 
(porca praecidanea) to Ceres was an expiation incumbent on 
persons who had failed to perform the usual purificatory 
rites after a death in the family, and that this sacrifice had 
to be offered by them before they might partake of the new 
fruits. Thus explained, the sacrifice of the pig (porca prae- 
ctdanea) becomes perfectly intelligible. It is a widespread 
view, all over the world, that the first-fruits of harvest 
are holy, and that consequently they may not be eaten 
by persons in a state of ceremonial pollution.” But a man 
who has been rendered unclean by a death in his family, and 
has not taken the proper steps to cleanse himself and _ his 
relations by performing the funeral ceremonies incumbent on 
him, is held to be in a state of virulent pollution, and conse- 
quently cannot without gross impiety partake of the new 
corn until he has first appeased the Corn-goddess by the 
sacrifice of a sow. Hence in this application the term 
porca praecidanea is a sow sacrificed before eating the 
new corn® rather than a sow sacrificed before reaping 
the new corn.* But, as we have seen, Varro tells us that 
in such cases the sow was sacrificed to the Earth-goddess 
as well as to: the Corn-goddess, and this also is perfectly 
intelligible ; for the Earth-goddess, who receives the dead 
into her bosom, naturally resents any omission of funeral 
rites as disrespectful to herself as well as to the departed, 
and naturally calls for an expiation in the shape of the 
sacrifice of a sow. | 

Another occasion on which a sacrifice was perhaps offered 
to the Earth-goddess ‘was after an earthquake. It is said 
that during an earthquake a voice was once heard from the 
temple of Juno on the Capitol commanding an expiatory 


sacrifice of a pregnant sow,° and a pregnant sow, as we have 
1 Aulus Gellius, iv. 6. 8, ‘* Porca 4 Festus, p.. 243, ed. Lindsay, 
etiam praectdanea appellata, quam ‘‘anteguam novam frugem praecide- 


piacult gratia ante fruges novas captas rent”; Aulus Gellius, iv. 6. 8, ‘ azte 
tmmolare Cerert mos erat, st gut fruges novas captas”. 
Jamiliam funestamautnon purgaverant, 
aut aliter eam rem, quam oportueral, 
procuraverant”, 

2 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits 


6 On this sacrifice, compare G. 
Wissowa, s.v. ** Tellus”, in W. H. 
Roscher’s Ausfiihrliches Lexicon der 


art V Pairs a's ENG as eS 

of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 48 sgg.  ®” <a aaa KE SLE lythologte, 
3 Festus, p. 250, ed. Lindsay, Ne 3325302: 

** priusguam novas fruges gustarent”’, 6 Cicero, De divinatione, i. 101, 


Sacrifices 
perhaps 
offered to 
the Earth- 
goddess 
after an 
earthquake. 


The temple 
of the 
Earth- 
goddess 

on the 
Esquiline. 


336 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES  cnar. 


seen, was the regular victim offered to the Earth-goddess. 
Again, while the Romans were fighting the Picentes in the 
year 268 B.C.,a shock of earthquake was felt by the con- 
tending armies, and in consequence the Roman Consul, 
P. Sempronius Sophus, vowed and built a temple of the 
Earth-goddess Tellus at Rome.’ Yet on the other hand we 
have it'on the authority of Varro that in the case of earth- 
quakes the Romans observed all the scrupulous caution 
which characterized them in religious matters. When an 
earthquake took place, they proclaimed a holy day or holy 
days, but refrained from announcing, as they usually did, the 
name of the god in whose honour the holy days were to be 
kept, and this they did for fear that they might name the 
wrong god and so involve the people in sin. Further, if any 
person, whether wittingly or unwittingly, desecrated one of 
these holy days the sacrilege had to be expiated by a 
sacrifice; but not knowing who the offended deity was, 
they did not dare to name him or her, but contented them- 
selves with directing the sacrifice “whether to god or 
goddess”, leaving it to the deity to whom it properly 
belonged to claim his own. Such was the rule laid down 
by the pontiffs, the highest authorities on questions of 
religion, and the reason alleged for the rule was that they 
did not know what force or what god or goddess caused 
an earthquake.” Thus it is by no means clear whether a 
pregnant sow was regularly offered after an earthquake, 
and even if it was so, it must still remain doubtful whether 
any part of the victim was formally assigned to the Earth- 
goddess. 

So far as we know the temple built for the Earth-goddess 
in consequence of the earthquake of 268 B.C. was the only 
one she ever possessed in Rome. It stood in the quarter 
called the Carinae, on the western slope of the Esquiline Hill, 
above the Forum ; the house of the Pompeys was not far off 
The exact ‘site has not been discovered, but it is believed to 
have been somewhere in the neighbourhood, though not 
immediately close to, the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, 


1 Florus, Zpztoma, i. 14. Servius, on Virgil, viii. 361; Dionysius 
2 Aulus Gellius, ii. 28. 2-3. Halicarnasensis, Antiguizt. Rom. viii. 
3 Suetonius, De grammaticis, 153; 79. 3. 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 337 


which contains the famous seated statue of Moses by Michael 
Angelo.’ Cicero’s brother Quintus lived in the same quarter; 
he seems to have undertaken to restore or embellish the 
temple. His statue was set up in front of it by his brother 
the orator... In Cicero’s lifetime part of the sacred area of 
the temple appears to have been appropriated by a private 
individual, who built himself a vestibule to his house on the 
spot; and for some reason the guilt of the sacrilege was 
apparently laid at the door of Cicero by his deadly enemy 
Publius Clodius. The season happened to be bad, the fields 
were barren, corn was scarce and dear, and in defending 
himself against the charge of impiety Cicero confesses to 
have felt misgivings as to whether the Earth-goddess had 
received her dues, all the more because the soothsayers 
reported that in the Campagna there had been heard a 
mysterious noise, accompanied by a dreadful clash of arms, 
which was interpreted to signify that the Earth-goddess 
and other deities were clamouring for their arrears.* The 
day after Caesar had been murdered, Mark Antony sum- 
moned the Senate to meet in the temple of Earth because Meeting of 


the Senate 


it was close to his house and he dared not go down to the." 


Senate-house, situated as it was beneath the Capitol, where temple of 
the assassins had taken refuge and were mustering the pro- pactateanes 
fessional cut-throats known as gladiators to defend them. of Caesar. 
The messengers with the summons went round to the houses 

of the senators in the course of the night, and the senators 

met in the temple while the grey dawn was breaking over 

the city. Among the speakers on that memorable occasion The temple 
were Mark Antony himself and Cicero.” In the fierce street- of Farth in 
fighting between the troops of Marius and Sulla, when the wars. 
soldiers of Sulla, forcing their way into the city, were received 

with volleys of stones and tiles from the multitude perched 

on the house-tops, the general replied by ordering his men 

‘to set fire to the houses and leading the way himself with 


1 O. Richter, Zopographie der Stadt 3 Cicero, dd Quintum fratrem Epist. 


Rom? (Munich, 1901), pp. 323-325 3 
H. Jordan, 7ofographie der Stadt Rom 


am Alterthum, i. 3, bearbeitet von 
Ch. Huelsen (Berlin, 1907), pp. 323- 
326. 


2 Cicero, Ad Quintum fratrem Epist. 
Thee Ele 
VOL. I 


Hi lala: 

4 Cicero, De haruspicum responso, 
X. 20, xiv. 31. 

5 Appian, Bed/. Civ. ii. 18. 126.599. 5 


Dio Cassius, xliv. 22 sgg.; Cicero, 
Philipp. i.. 13. 313 ta., Epist. ad 
Atticum, xvi. 14. 1. 

Z 


Varro's 
dialogue 
in the 
temple of 
Earth, 


The Earth- 
goddess 
annually 


338 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ARYAN * PEOPLE SWICHA®. 


a blazing torch in his hand. Marius was driven back to the 
temple of Earth, where he vainly endeavoured to make a 
last stand, calling on the slaves to rally round him and to 
win their freedom by the sword.’ Many years later, when 
the tide of civil war had ebbed far from the capital, though 
the issue had still to be fought out on distant battle-fields 
and seas, the aged antiquary Varro, then in his eightieth 
year, ascended the hill and passing along the now peaceful 
streets entered the temple of Earth. It was the time of 
the sowing festival, and he came at the invitation of the 
sacristan, probably to take part in some rite appropriate 
to the holy day. The sacristan himself was absent, but 
in the temple Varro met several friends who had also come 
at the invitation of the same official. He found them con- 
templating a picture of Italy painted on one of the walls 
of the edifice. Awaiting the return of the sacristan, they 
sat down on benches and fell into a discourse very appro- 
priate to the season and the place, for it turned on the 
fertility of Italy, in which they agreed that it surpassed all 
the rest of the earth. For what spelt, they asked, was like 
the Campanian? what wheat like the Apulian? what wine 
like the Falernian? what olive-oil like the Venafran? could 
the vineyards of Phrygia vie with those of Italy? did the 
cornfields of Argos equal the cornfields of Italy? And as 
for fruit trees, were they not planted so thick in Italy that 
the whole country resembled an orchard?? This patriotic 
panegyric on their native land, put in the mouth of a knot 
of old gentlemen discoursing peacefully on a holiday at the 
temple of the Earth-goddess, may perhaps have suggested 
to Virgil his famous praise of Italy,* which is undoubtedly 
one of the noblest expressions of the love of country ever 
penned by mortal man. 

In her temple on the Esquiline the Earth-goddess was 
annually worshipped along with the Corn-goddess Ceres on 


worshipped the thirteenth day of December, which seems to have been 


on 
December 
13th. 


the anniversary of the foundation of the temple. Apparently 
the worship took the form of a J/ectzsternzuim, in which the 


1 Plutarch, Sz//a, 9. treatise is mentioned by himself in the 
* Varro, Rerum rusticarum libri preface (of. czf. i. 1. 1). 

tres, i. 2, 1-7. That Varro was in his 

eightieth year when he wrote this 3 Virgil, Georg. ii. 136 sq. 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 339 


deities were represented reclining on couches and partaking 
of a banquet." 

The worship of the Roman Earth-goddess Tellus or 
Terra appears to have been widespread in the provinces, 
from Spain in the west to Dalmatia in the east, and south- 
ward to Numidia. But the inscriptions which attest the 
diffusion of the worship furnish little or no information as to 
the nature of the rites.” At Rudnik, to the south of Belgrade, 
there was a temple of Mother Earth (Zer1a Mater) appro- 
priately situated at the entrance to some quarries or mines ; 
it was rebuilt in the name of the Emperor Septimius Severus 
by the procurator Cassius Ligurinus.° Near Murcia, in 
Spain, a dedication to Mother Earth (Zerra Mater) has been 
found, surmounted by an image of the goddess. She is 
represented as a woman of mature age, seated and holding 
in her left hand a cornucopia, in her right hand a saucer, 
while on her knees various fruits are heaped up in a fold of 
her robe.* Such a representation lays stress on the character 
of the goddess as a deity of fertility ; no wonder that as 
such she was sometimes confused with the Corn-goddess 
Ceres. In Africa the worship of the Earth-goddess seems 
to have been particularly popular. At Cuicol in Numidia 
the city built a temple to her under the title of Tellus 
Genitrix, which is equivalent to Mother Earth, and in the 
temple was an image of the goddess, presented by a certain 
Titus Julius Honoratus, Pontiff and Perpetual. Flamen.° 
Other temples of the Earth-goddess are known to have 
existed in Africa, as at Vaga and Cirta; the one at Vaga 
was restored in the year 2 B.c.° Between Zama and Uzappa 
there was a temple of the Goddess Earth (dea Tellus), which 
was rebuilt by one of the successors of Marcus Aurelius. 
The existence of a priesthood, and consequently of a public 


1 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 2 J. Toutain, Les Cultes paiens dans 
i.2 p. 237 (Haste Praenestint), with LTEmpire Romain, i. (Paris, 1907) 
Mommsen’s Commentary, pp. 336 s7.; pp. 338 sgq. 

Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, vii. 32. 
Arnobius mentions only a /ectesterntum 
of Ceres, and he omits to give the 4); contain, 7.2, 
name 6f the month in which the cere- 
Ae J. Toutain, 
Norge pees wpounh she ee Lnscriptiones Latinae Selectae, No. 
the day of the month (the Ides). His 7 - : 
omissions are supplied by the engraved 3957: 
calendars (/as/2). Sr}. Toutain, of.°czz. 1. 339's¢- 


3\J, Toutain, of. cz#. i. 339. 


LGnshk ls LIeSsall, 


The wor- 
ship of the 
Earth- 
goddess 

in the 
provinces, 


The Earth- 
goddess 

in relation 
to thedead. 


Custom of 
devoting 
the army of 
aneneny to 
the Earth- 
goddess 
and the 
spirits of 
the dead. 


340 WORSHIP OF EARTH. BY ARYAN PEOPLES © CHAP. 


worship, of the goddess is attested by inscriptions at Madaura 
and Thubursicum in Numidia. In both these towns the 
priestly office was discharged by priestesses," It has been 
remarked that traces of the worship of the Earth-goddess in 
Africa are found only in the interior of the province and in 
fertile regions, where the population had certainly been 
sedentary and agricultural before the Roman conquest. 
The natural inference is that the cult of the Earth-goddess 
had deep roots in the soil of Africa.? 

The last aspect of the Roman Earth-goddess which here 
calls for notice is her relation to the dead. She was often 
coupled with the deified spirits of the departed (the az manes). 
When the news of the death of Tiberius was made known 
at Rome, the populace were wild with joy and ran about 
the streets shouting, “To the Tiber with Tiberius”, while 
others prayed to Mother Earth and the deified dead to give 
the deceased tyrant a place among the damned in hell.° 
Similar pious prayers were put up to the same deities by 
the Roman mob for the soul of the Emperor Gallienus.’ 
The grave would seem to have been naturally enough the 
place where Mother Earth and the deified spirits of the 
dead were worshipped together. An epitaph on the tomb 
of three members of the great Cornelian house contains a 
dedication to these divine spirits and to Mother Earth. 
And addresses to both Mother Earth and the deified dead 
often occur in sepulchral inscriptions.° 

But the most solemn of all occasions when these deities 
were conjoined was when a Roman general devoted himself 
to them in order by his death to procure the victory of 
his own men and the destruction of the enemy’s army. 
Two instances of this devotion are recorded in Roman 
history. In the year 340 B.c, the -Roman and the Latin 
armies were encamped over against each other in the 
neighbourhood of Capua. The Roman army was under 
the command of the two consuls P. Decius Mus and 


1 J. Toutain, of. czt. i, 340. carly Dean lnscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, No. 8008. 
; ; ad. 6 G. Wissowa, s.v. “Tellus” ein 
Suetonius, Ziberius, 75. W. H. Roscher’s Ausfihrliches Lexikon 
* Sextus Aurelius Victor, De Caesar- der griechischen und rimischen pd 
2bus, XXXill, 31. logié, Vv. 336 sg. 


2 J. Toutain, of. cet. i. 340 59. 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 341 


T. Manlius Torquatus. It was the eve of battle. In the 
dead of night both consuls dreamed the same dream. They 
seemed to see the figure of a man of more than mortal 
stature and of more than human majesty, who said that the 
general of the one side and the army of the other were 
doomed to fall victims to the deified spirits of the dead and 
to Mother Earth, and that victory would rest with the side 
whose general devoted himself and the army of the enemy 
to death. In the morning the consuls compared their 
dreams, and resolved that, to avert the anger of the gods, 
sacrifices should be offered, but that, if the omens drawn 
from the victims should be found to tally with the visions 
of the night, one of the two consuls should comply with the 
decree of fate. The sacrifices were offered, and the omens 
tallied exactly with the dreams. So a council of war was 
held ; the situation was clearly explained to the officers by 
the commanders, and it was decided not to alarm the soldiers 
by the voluntary and public death of one of the consuls in 
front of the whole army, but to abide the issue of battle ; 
then, if either wing of the Roman army gave way before 
the enemy, the consul in command of that wing was to 
devote himself to death for the Roman people and army, 
and rushing into the midst of the enemy to seek and find 
death.’ The thing was done. The battle took place near 
the foot of Vesuvius. Before the consuls led out the army 
to the fight, a sacrifice was offered and the auspices were 
taken. The soothsayer, on inspecting the entrails of the 
victim, informed the consul Decius that the omens were ill 
for him, but well for his colleague Manlius. “If they be well 
for him.”, replied Decius, “then all is well.’ He commanded 
the left wing ; Manlius commanded the right. On the left 
wing the front Roman line gave way under a charge of the 
Latins and fell back on the second line. Their commander, 
the consul Decius, called for the pontiff, and bade him recite 
the form of words by which a general devoted himself to 
death for his army. The pontiff complied, and Decius 
repeated the words after him, in the attitude prescribed by 
ritual, standing on a javelin with his head muffled and his 
hand applied to his chin. Invoking all the Roman gods 
1 Livy, viii. 6. 8-13. 


The consul 
P. Decius 
Mus thus 
devoted 
himself and 
the army of 
the enemy 
in 340 B.C. 


Livy on the 
ritual of 
devotion. 


342 WORSHIP.OF EARTH BY ARYAN PEOPLES ciap. 


in due form, he prayed for the victory of the Roman 
arms and the destruction of the foe, concluding with a 
solemn dedication of himself and the army of the enemy 
to the Earth-goddess and the spirits of the dead. Then, 
having sent word to his colleague Manlius of what he had 
done, he leaped, sword in hand, on his horse, charged into 
the thickest of the enemy and was cut to pieces. But from 
the spot where he fell, consternation spread like wild-fire in 
the Latin ranks. Their whole army was soon in full flight, 
and the battle ended in a complete victory for the Romans. 
But the struggle lasted till nightfall, and in the darkness it 
was impossible to discover the dead body of Decius. Next 
day it was found, pierced with many wounds, where the 
enemy’s dead lay thickest; and his colleague paid him 
funeral honours worthy of the death he had died.’ 

The historian Livy, after describing the devotion and 
death of Decius, adds some curious details of the ancient 
Roman ritual which had long passed out of use and almost 
of memory in his own day. He tells us that in devoting 
the army of the enemy to destruction a Roman commander 
was free to devote ‘to death any soldier of his own army 
instead of himself, and that if the soldier so devoted fell in 
the battle, all was well; but that if he survived, a statue 
seven feet high or more had to be buried in the earth and 
a piacular sacrifice offered, and on the ground where the 
statue was buried, no Roman magistrate might set foot. 
Clearly the statue was offered to the Earth-goddess and the 
spirits of the dead as a substitute for the living victim of 
which they had been deprived by the escape of the soldier 
from the battle. But if the general devoted himself, as 
Decius did, and nevertheless survived, he was thenceforth 
incapable of offering any sacrifice, whether public or 
private, apparently because, having been devoted to the 
the infernal powers, he carried the taint of death about with 
him, and would consequently defile any religious rite at 
which he might venture to assist. Lastly, Livy tells us that 
the javelin, on which the general stood when he pronounced 
‘the formula of devotion, might not without sacrilege fall 
into the hands of the enemy; but that if they did contrive 


1 Livy, vili. 9-10; Valerius Maximus, i. 7. 3. 


vi WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 343 


to get possession of it, the sacrilege had to be expiated by 
the sacrifice of a sheep and a bull to Mars.' 

Forty-five years after the heroic death of P. Decius Mus, simitar 
his son and namesake, the consul P. Decius, died a similar eee ees 
death in a desperate battle with the united forces of the Decius, son 
Samnites, Umbrians, Etruscans, and Gauls. He, like his nena 
father, devoted himself and the army of the enemy to the 
Earth-goddess and the spirits of the dead; he, like his 
father, charged on horseback into the thickest of the foe 
and found a soldier’s death in their midst ; and his mangled 
body, like that of his father, was borne from the field by his 
weeping soldiers to receive the last honours that a grateful 


country could pay to his memory.” 


SRLAVY a Vili Oe ti Ta, Vill.) 11st, * Livy, x.°27-29. 


CULAR ERaaV LT 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG NON-ARYAN 
PEOPLES OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. The Worship of Earth among the ancient 
Babylonians and Assyrians 

Enlil, the WE have seen that in Babylonian mythology the Earth-god 
Een Enlil held a high rank as a member of the great trinity, of 
EARN which the other members were Anu, the god of the sky, and 
deity who Ea, the god of the abyss of water beneath the earth.’ But 
een raat though Enlil is commonly designated by modern writers as 
Pe the Earth-god without qualification,” it seems very doubtful 
whether from the first he occupied that dignified position. 

There is no doubt that originally he was the local god of 
Nippur, the religious centre of Babylonia. His name is 
Sumerian and means Lord of the Wind or of the Storm, 

which points to his being a god of the air rather than of the 

earth. The Semites, in adopting his worship, gave him the 

Semitic name of Bel, equivalent to Baal, which merely 

means Lord or Master. But at Nippur he seems to have 

been never known by any other name than Enlil or Ellil ; 

hence we may infer that he was an ancient Sumerian deity 

and that at Nippur his worship always remained essentially 


1 See above, pp. 65 sg. op. ctt. pp. 52-55; H. Zimmern, in - 


2 L. W. King, Babylonian Religion EE. Schrader, Die Ketlinschriften und 
and Mythology, pp. 10,14; M. Jastrow, das alte Testament? (Berlin, 1903), 
The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 354-356; E. Meyer, Geschichte 
pp. 140, 147; S. Langdon, Zhe Baby- des Altertums*, i, 2. pp. 407, 421 sg., 
lonian Epic of Creation (Oxford, 1923), 440 5g., 519, 559 sg.; P. Dhorme, 
pp. 17, 233; z@., in The Cambridge La Religion Assyro-Babylonienne (Paris, 
Ancient History, i.2 391, 392. As to 1910), p. 70; Br. Meissner, Badbylonien 
the worship of Enlil (Ellil) or Bel, as und Assyrien (Heidelberg, 1920-1925), 
the Semites called him, see M. Jastrow, ii. 6-8. 


344 


EE EE 


cH. vil WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG BABYLONIANS 345 


Sumerian.’ Indeed, he was the chief national god of the 
Sumerians ; his temple at Nippur was the principal shrine 
of the whole country, and the holy city itself may be called 
the Sumerian Rome.” And as the Sumerian city of Nippur 
was the Rome of Babylonia, so the ancient Sumerian 
language remained the holy tongue of Babylonia even after 
it had long been superseded by a Semitic speech in all the 
usages of daily life, just as Latin has remained the holy 
tongue of the Catholic Church for centuries after it was dis- 
placed by its daughter tongues, the Romance languages. 
Down to a late time the original Sumerian texts continued 
to be copied and accompanied by Semitic translations, when 
Sumerian had become a dead language; nay, it was a rule 
to add Sumerian versions even to original Semitic texts.’ 


In their origin the great cities of Babylonia were little The ruins 


more than collections of rude huts built of reeds cut in the 
surrounding marshes ; but in time these frail structures gave 
place to more substantial buildings of clay and sun-dried 
brick. From the very first it would seem that the shrine of 
the local god played an important part in the foundation 
and subsequent development of each centre of population ; 
it formed as it were the nucleus or germ about which a 
town tended to grow both by the natural multiplication of 
the inhabitants and by the aggregation of dwellers from the 
surrounding country, who would-be attracted to it, partly by 
the security afforded by its walls and the strength of its 
natural position, partly by the reputation of the deity, under 
whose powerful protection they hoped to place themselves. 
Such in outline would seem to have been the early history 
of Nippur. It was built on a group of mounds rising like 
an island from the dead flat of the marshes. The site, still 
known by its ancient name in the slightly altered form of 


! As to the name Enlil, ‘‘ Lord of 
the Wind”, see H. Zimmern, of. c7z. 
Pp. 354 59.; E. Meyer, op. cz¢. i. 2. pp. 
407, 421; P. Dhorme, La Religion 
Assyro-Babylonienne, pp. 70 sg.; L. W. 
King, History of Sumer and Akkad, 
p. 52; S. H. Langdon, in 7he Cam- 
bridge Ancient History, i.* 391; Br. 
Meissner, Babylonien und. Assyrien, 
li. 6. But according to M. Jastrow 
(op. ett. p. 53), ‘* Primarily, the ideo- 


graph Lil is used to designate a demon 
in general, and En-lil is therefore the 
‘ chief demon’ ”. 

2B. Meyer, of. c##. i. 2. pp. 421, 
440 sg.; S. H. Langdon, in Zhe 
Cambridge Ancient History, i. 391 sq. 
On Nippur as the religious centre of 
Babylonia, see L. W. King, Hestory of 
Sumer and Akkad (London, 1916), pp. 
85, 107, 297. 

3 E. Meyer, of, czt. i. 2. p. 521. 


of Nippur. 


The 
sanctuary 
of Enlil at 
Nippur. 


346 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES Cu. 


Niffer or Nuffar, is marked by the ruins which in recent 
years have been investigated and excavated by American 
scholars. The mounds, once occupied by a thriving 
population, have long been deserted ; and, like the sites of 
many other ancient cities in Babylonia and Assyria, no 
modern town or village is built upon them or in their 
immediate neighbourhood. In summer the surrounding 
marshes consist of pools of water connected by a network of 
channels meandering through the reed-beds ; but in spring, 
when the snows have melted in the Taurus and the 
mountains of Kurdistan, the flood-water converts the 
marshes into a great lagoon, and in the vast level expanse 
nothing meets the eye but here and there a solitary date- 
palm and a few hamlets built on knolls that scarcely rise 
above the waste of waters.’ Of this site of the ancient city, 
now lying desolate, the words of the prophet may seem to 
have come true: “It shall never be inhabited, neither shall 
it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall 
the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds 
make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall 
lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; 
and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. 


And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate 


houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.” ” 

The sanctuary of Enlil occupied the centre of the 
ancient city, and was built on an artificial mound to prevent 
it from being swamped when the floods were out. An 
ancient plan of the temple, drawn on a clay tablet which is 
believed to date from the first half of the second millennium 
before our era, enables us to form a fairly accurate notion of 
the general arrangement of the sanctuary, which bore the 
name of E-Kur. It was surrounded by~an irregular wall 
and cut by a canal or sluice, on one side of which stood the 
store-houses of the temple. The most striking feature of 
the sacred area was the great temple-tower (siggurat), built 
of bricks and rising in the form of a pyramid, with a ramp 
winding round and up it to the summit. Such temple- 
towers, forming conspicuous landmarks in the flat country of 


1L, W. King, History of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 84-86. 
* Isaiah xiii. 20-22. 


VII WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG BARYLONIANS 


347 


Babylonia, perhaps gave rise to the legend of the Tower of 
Babel. The great one at Nippur is known from inscriptions 
to have been built by Ur-Engur, the first king of Ur of 
the Chaldees, who reigned about 2400 B.c._ In the treasure- 
chambers of the sanctuary were deposited the votive offerings 
of Sumerian kings and princes, particularly vases made of 
stone and bearing inscriptions.’ 

Clay figures. of the god represent him in human form Imagesand 
with long hair and beard. He wears a horned head-dress, eS 
the emblem of divinity. He bore the title of “the Great 
Mountain” (£ur-gal in Sumerian, shadi-rabé in Assyrian) or 
“King of the Mountain-lands” (dugal kurkura in Sumerian, 
bél métati in Assyrian); and E-Kur, the name of his temple 
at Nippur, means “ House of the Mountain” But the 
god was also known more simply as Lord or King of 
the Lands, probably in the sense of Lord or King of the 
whole Earth. Further, he was styled the King of Heaven 
and Earth,* and the Father of the Gods.’ Possessing 
dominion over the whole earth, he was able to confer 
it on his favourites. He also determined the fates, and 
as a symbol of this supreme power, which few gods could 
claim, he constantly carried the tablets of destiny. One 
morning, when he was washing himself, he incautiously 
took off his crown and laid it on a chair while he performed 
his ablutions. The storm-bird Zu seized the opportunity 


IL. W. King, History of Sumer 437). 


Enlil and 
the tablets 
of destiny. 


According to Professor Langdon 


and Akkad, pp. 86-89; E. Meyer, of. 
cit. i. 2. pp. 415, 441; S. H. Langdon, 
in The Cambridge Ancient History, i.* 
392. As to King Ur-Engur, see S. H. 
Langdon, in Zhe Cambridge Ancient 
History, i.2 435 s¢g., who calls him 
“‘the real champion of Sumer and 
Akkad, the organizer of its most 
brilliant period: \.(p.- 435). -.‘* The 
emperors of Ur surpassed their pre- 
decessors in their reverence for Nippur. 
So great were the revenues in grain, 
fruit, live stock, and various offerings 
that a receiving-house was built on the 
Euphrates below Nippur, now the ruins 
of Drehem. Arabs have found many 
hundred tablets from temple archives, 
and nearly every collection in Europe, 
America, and the British Empire pos- 
sesses some of these records” (2d. p. 


(op. czt. i.2 435, 658), Ur-Engur came 
to the throne in 2474 B.c. and reigned 
eighteen years. 

aR Meyer,rop. cet, i) 2.) p.421 5 
Ea Zimmer pop cels ype 355 shor. 
Dhorme, of. czt. p. 72; M. Jastrow, 
op. ctt, p. 563.5. H. Langdon, ‘in 
The Cambridge Ancient History, i.? 
392; Br. Meissner, Badylonten und 
Assyrien, ii. 7 sg. As to the horned 
head-dress, compare S. H. Langdon, 
op. cit. i.* 438. 

See Meyer.) Of. e177. 1; 2... 421 3 
H. Zimmern, of. czt) p..355 3° L. W. 
King, Aistory of Sumer and Akkad, 
PR aLOs C4 194, 196 sg., 198 sg. 

4L. W. King, Aistory of Sumer 
and Akkad, p. 128. 

5 E. Meyer, of. ctf. i. 2. p. 4453 

P. Dhorme, of. cz¢. p. 72. 


Enlil’s wife 
Ninlil. 


Enlil's 
place in the 
Babylonian 
pantheon 
beside Anu 
and Ea. 


Enlil ina 
treaty 
between 
Lagash 
and 
Umma. 


348 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES Cu. 


to purloin the tablets of destiny and so to rob the deity 
of his power. It cost Enlil much trouble to recover his 
stolen property. The story a the theft and the recovery 
is the theme of an epic poem.’ 

Side by side with Enlil was worshipped his ite Ninlil, 
a goddess of procreation and fertility, whose name is only 
a feminine form of Enlil. The Semites called her Belit, 
the feminine form of Bel, which, as we saw, was the Semitic 
name of her consort Enlil. She also bore the title of the 
Lady of Heaven and Earth, corresponding to the title of King 
of Heaven and Earth bestowed upon her husband. Further, 
she was akin to, and afterwards identified with, Nin-khar-sag, 
“the Lady of the Mountain”, who was known as the Mother 
of the Gods and was believed to nourish princes with her 
holy milk. Yet the glory of Ninlil was dimmed by that of 
her husband Enlil; like most Babylonian goddesses she was 
only a pale reflection of her powerful Lord.” 

Thus Enlil, from being merely the local god of Nippur, 
gradually rose to a position of supremacy as the deity of the 
whole habitable world. It was in virtue of this enhanced 
dignity that among the Semites he became known simply 
as Bel, that is Baal, the Lord or Master. As the god of the 
whole surface of the earth he took his place in the Babylonian 
pantheon beside Anu, the god of the sky, and Ea, the god 
of the subterranean waters. : , 

Evidence of the high rank accorded to Enlil among all 
the gods of Sumer is furnished by a treaty contracted 
between the neighbouring cities of Lagash and Umma in 
Southern Babylonia. There had been a dispute between 
them concerning the boundary line, and with the consent 
of both sides Mesilim, king of Kish, drew up a treaty of 
delimitation. The document has been discovered in modern 
times and is peculiarly interesting because it forcibly illus- 
trates the theocratic sentiment of these early peoples, who 
conceived themselves to be under the immediate sway of 


' Br. Meissner, Babylonien und of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 104, 294; 


Assyrien, ii. 7, 182. Br. Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, 
2M, Jastrow,. of. c#¢. pp. 55 sg.3 11. 8. 
H. Zimmern, of. czt. p. 356; E. Meyer, 3M.) Jastrow,. of, ¢c#f.0p. 0530 eis 


op. cit, i, 2, pp. 421 sg.: P. Dhorme, Zimmern, of. ct. p. 355; P. Dhorme, 
op. cit. p. 733 L. W. King, Azstory op. crt. pp. 71 59. 





vi. WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG BABYLONIANS 349 


their respective deities far more than under that of their 
human governors. In accordance with this view the rulers 
(patests) of the two cities are not so much as named in 
the treaty; the dispute is supposed to have been settled 
by the gods, not by any mere mortal agents. The president 
of the peace conference was not a human king nor yet his 
prime minister ; it was the great god Enlil in person, “the 
King of the Lands”. On account of the unique position 
which he held among the deities of Babylonia, his authority 
was frankly acknowledged by the smaller divinities, the 
local gods of the other cities. Thus it was at his command 
that Ningirsu, the god of Lagash, and the city-god of 
Umma fixed the boundary. It is true that Mesilim, the 
king of Kish, is named in the treaty, but he only acted 
at the bidding of his own goddess Kadi, and -his duties 
were merely those of a secretary; all that he had to do 
was to put down in writing the treaty which the. gods 
themselves had drawn up. We could hardly have a more 
striking instance of the theocratic spirit which prevailed 
among the early inhabitants of Babylonia somewhere about 
three thousand years before our era. Like the Israelites at 
a much later date, these simple-minded folk regarded the 
gods as the real rulers of their cities. Human kings and 
governors (fateszs) were nothing more than ministers or 
diplomatic agents appointed to carry out the divine will. 
Hence, when one city made war upon another city, it was 
not ostensibly because the two peoples owed each other a 
grudge ; the reason, or at all events the pretext, alleged for 
hostilities was that the gods were at feud, and that therefore 
the worshippers were bound to support the sacred cause by 
fire and sword. But we may suspect that in such cases 
the gods were little more than fair masks to hide the foul 
passions of men. And in like manner, when the sword was 
sheathed, it was nominally for the gods to dictate the treaty 
of peace and for men to submit to it." 


1L, W. King, story of Sumer 
and Akkad, pp. 100-102. Compare 
E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums?, 
i, 2. p. 445, who names Gishu instead 
of Umma as one of the two contracting 
cities. The date of King Mesilim is 


given by L. W. King (of. cet. Appen- 
dix II.) as somewhere before or about 
3000 B.c,; by Meyer it is given as 
about 2850 B.C. Professor S. H. 
Langdon assigns him a much earlier 
date, about 3638 B.c. See Zhe Cam- 


The 
Sumerian 
conqueror 
Lugal- 
zaggisi 
ascribed all 
the glory 
of his 
conquests 
to Enlil. 


Prayer of 
King 
Lugal- 
zaggisi to 
Enlil. 


350 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES: Cu. 


Again, at a somewhat later period a strong testimony to 
the overruling power of the great god Enlil is borne by 
Lugal-zaggisi, lord of Umma, who, about the year 2800 B.C., 
subdued the whole of Sumer and won for himself a dominion 
as great as, if not greater than, any hitherto acquired by any 
Sumerian ruler of a city state, for it would seem to have 
stretched from the Persian Gulf (the Lower Sea) to. the 
Mediterranean (the Upper Sea). The record of his conquests 
has been pieced together from the inscriptions engraved 
upon a number of fragments of vases, made of white calcite 
stalagmite, which Lugal-zaggisi had dedicated to Enlil and 
deposited as votive offerings at his great temple of E-kur in 
Nippur, where they were discovered in the course of the 
excavations carried out by the University of Pennsylvania. 
In these inscriptions the pious Sumerian king ascribes all the 
glory of his conquests to Enlil, just as a pious Israelitish 
king would ascribe all the glory of his conquests to Jehovah.’ 
Thus King Lugal-zaggisi says: “When the god Enlil, the 
King of the Lands, had bestowed upon Lugal-zaggisi the 
kingdom of the land, and had granted him success in the 
eyes of the land, and when his might had cast the lands 
down, and he had conquered them from the rising of the 
sun unto the setting of the same, at that time he made 
straight his path from the Lower Sea over the Euphrates 
and the Tigris unto the Upper Sea”.” 

Further, in these inscriptions King Lugal-zaggisi has 
left on record that he dedicated the vases to Enlil, after 
making due offerings of loaves in Nippur and pouring a 
libation of pure water. Then he adds a dedicatory prayer, 


Sumerians. Sargon, the Semite, 
became king of Kish because the 


bridge Anctent History, i.2, 368 sq. 
According to Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, 


‘It is not possible at present to assign 
an exact date to the reign of Mesilim, 
and of his works at Kish nothing is 


known, The evidence which 
JLangdon has collected proves, he 
thinks, that Kish was the oldest 


capital of Sumer and Akkad, and that 
it maintained control of the entire 
land for longer periods, and more 
often, than any other City-State before 
the coming of Sargon, who removed 
his seat of royalty from Kish to Agade. 
The founders of Kish were undoubtedly 


god Enlil slew ‘ Kish like the bull of 
heaven’.” See Sir E, A. Wallis Budge, 
Babylonian Life and History, Second 
Edition (London, 1925), p. 257. 

1 Compare King Solomon’s prayer 
at the dedication of the temple, 1 Kings 
Vill. 44-49. 

2 L. W. King, “7rstory of Sumer 
and Akkad, pp. 193 sg. Compare 
S. H. Langdon, in 7he Cambridge 
Ancient History, i.*, 402 sg., who 
dates the rise of Lugal-Zaggisi about 
2897 B.C. 





vil. WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG BABYLONIANS — 351 


beseeching the deity to grant life to himself, peace to his 
country, and a large army. His prayer for these blessings 
runs as follows: “May Enlil, the King of the Lands, pro- 
nounce my prayer to Ana, his beloved father! To my life 
may he add life! May he cause the lands to dwell in 
security! Warriors as numerous as the grass may he grant 
me in abundance! Of the celestial folds may he take 
care! May he look with kindness on the land of Sumer ! 
May the gods not alter the good destiny they have assigned 
to me! May I always be the shepherd, who leads his 
flock !”? 

Other kings commemorated their victories in inscriptions Com- 
engraved on stone vases, which they dedicated as thank- Beak oF 
offerings to Enlil at Nippur. Some of these vases were kings to 
made of white calcite stalagmite, others of dark brown sand- eat 
stone, and others of dark brown tufa or igneous rock. In 
the land of Sumer, formed of alluvial soil, stone is a rare 
commodity; and vases made of it were fitting offerings at 
the shrine of Enlil among the marshes.” 

At a later time two kings of Ur, by name Bur-Sin and Devotion 
his son Gimil-Sin, manifested their devotion to Enlil SIR es 
Nippur in many ways. .Both of them fully recognized the to Enlil of 
importance of the central shrine at Nippur and laid stress ae 
on Enlil’s position at the head of the Babylonian pantheon. 

Both of them dedicated offerings to the god at his great 
temple of E-kur; and both of them publicly acknowledged 
that to him they owed their elevation to the throne of Ur. 
Thus in the inscriptions Bur-Sin’s regular titles are generally 
preceded by the phrase, “ whose name Enlil has pronounced 
in Nippur”; while his son Gimil-Sin describes himself as 
“the beloved of Enlil”, “whom Enlil has chosen as _ his 
heart’s beloved”, or “whom Enlil in his heart has chosen to 
be the shepherd of the land and of the four quarters”. 
From inscriptions found at Nippur we know that Bur-Sin 
enlarged the great temple of E-Kur, and also built a store- 
house for offerings of honey, butter, and wine, while his third 
year was. dated by the construction of a great throne in 
1L. W. King, Aistory of Sumer  p. 458. 


and Akkad, pp. 198 sy. Compare E, Pres King, Aéstory of Sumer 
Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums?,i,2. and Akkad, pp. 165 sy., 201 sg. 


352 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cu. 


honour of En-lil., The king’s son and successor, Gimil-Sin, 
appears to have been equally zealous in his devotion to the 
shrine ; for out of his short reign two years take their titles 
from the setting up of a great sculptured slab and the build- 
ing of a sacred boat, both offerings being dedicated to the 
glory of Enlil and his wife Ninlil, 
The titles When the centre of political power shifted northwards 
rae of from Sumer to Akkad and settled definitely at Babylon, the 
afterwards local god of Babylon,.by name Marduk, naturally aspired to 
assumed Ya dignity in the pantheon suitable to the rank which his 
Babylon. city had assumed in the sublunary sphere; and this natural 
ambition was gratified by investing him with. the title 
and attributes of the oldest and greatest of the ancient 
Sumerian deities, Enlil of Nippur. Thus Marduk usurped 
the title of Lord of the Lands (4é matdt) which for ages 
had been the property of Enlil; and in later times he 
abridged the title into Bél, the general Semitic name for 
Lord or Master, which really belonged to Enlil. Further, 
he annexed without scruple not a few myths and hymns 
which, time out of mind, had been recited and chanted in 
honour of Enlil and other gods. Nay, he went so far as to 
oust Enlil from the dignity of Creator and to pose in that 
lofty character himself. Thus, to take a single instance, 
it was indubitably Enlil, the mighty warrior, who in the 
beginning fought and conquered the great dragon Tiamat, 
parted the earth and sky, and fashioned this terrestrial globe 
in the manner in which it has continued to exist, with very 
little change, down to our own time. Yet these beneficent 
exploits were in later ages transferred bodily from Enlil of 
Nippur to Marduk of Babylon. However, the ancient deity 
in a sense took his revenge on the unscrupulous upstart who 
had made free with his property and tricked himself out 
in borrowed plumes; for more and more, as time went on, 
the name of Marduk tended to fall into abeyance, until at 


1L. W. King, Héstory of Sumer succeeded to the throne in 2398 B.c. 
and Akkad, p. 297. As to the two and reigned eight years, receiving divine 
kings, Bur-Sin and Gimmil-Sin, see honours from the date of his accession. 
S. H. Langdon, in 7hke Cambridge His son Gimmil-Sin was also deified 
Ancient History, i.* 457-459. Accord- in his lifetime. Compare Sir E. A. 
ing to him, King Bur-Sin, whose name Wallis Budge, Babylonian Life and 
signifies ‘‘ Youth of the Moon-god”, Azstory® (London, 1925), pp. 31 sg. 





vil WORSHIP OF ‘EARTH BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 353 


last it was almost entirely replaced by that of Bel, 
ancient Semitic title of Enlil.? 

Yet though Enlil rose to the rank of a god of the whole Enlilhardly 
earth, he seems to have held that position rather as a lord Sega 
or possessor of the surface of the earth than as a personifica- thematerial 
tion of its material substance. Hence if by an Earth-god “"™ 
we mean the personification of the earth as a divine being, 

Enlil can hardly lay claim to the title. 


the 


§ 2. 


We have seen that the ancient Egyptians personified the The 
earth as a male god named Seb or Keb, who was married ed a 
to the Sky-goddess, Nut.” But apart from his marriage to Seb or 
the personified sky and his relation to the dead, the Earth- *°” 
god plays little part in Egyptian mythology and religion.’ 

In art he is represented as a man either with a crown, 
sometimes of a peculiar shape, or with a goose on his head. 
Sacred geese of a particular species were sacred to him and 
bore his name (sed or keb), because he was thought to have 
flown through the air in the shape of a goose. In hiero- 
glyphic writing one af his symbols is a goose, and another 
is an egg. . He personified both the element earth and the 
surface of the earth on which trees and plants grow. Hence 
the earth was conceived of as his body, but also as his 
house ; for it was called the House of Keb, just as the air 
was called the House of Shu, the heaven the House of 
Ra, the Sun-god, and the underworld the House of 
Osiris.* There was no special city or district set apart for 
his worship, but his chief seat appears to have been at 
Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, where he and his wife laid 
and hatched a great egg, out of which the Sun-god burst 
in the shape of a phoenix. In virtue of having laid this 


The Worship of Earth among the Ancient Egyptians 


1 M. Jastrow, 7he Religion of Baby- 
lonia and Assyria, p.5§4; H. Zimmern, 
op. cit, 355 sg.; E. Meyer, Geschichte 
des Altertums*, i, 2. pp. 430, 521, 
559 59. 


2 Above, pp. 70 sg. The god’s name 
is spelled Geb by Professor Peet (7%e 
Cambridge Ancient History, i.? 331). 


VOL. .1 


3 A. Erman, Die dgyptische Religion® 
(Berlin, 1909), p. 21. 

# (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe 
Gods of the Egyptians (London, 1904), 
li. 94; H. Brugsch, Aeligion und 
Mythologie der alten Agypter (Leipzig, 
1885-1888), p. 577; A. Wiedemann, 
Religion of the Ancient Egyptians 
(London, 1897), pp. 230 sg. 


2A 


354 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cu. 


celebrated egg, the god sometimes went by the name of 
the Great Cackler." He is also described as one of the 
porters of heaven’s gate, who draws back the bolt and opens 
the door to let the light of the Sun-god stream upon the 
world ; when he moves, thunder rolls in the sky, and the 
Seb earth quakes.” According to the lists of the divine dynasties 
Seana in Memphis and Thebes, he was the fourth king of Egypt, 
king of | and was therefore to be reckoned as one of the younger 
Feyptand sods, In the Legend of the Destruction of Mankind he is 
successor installed as king in immediate succession to the Sun-god 
Gua Ra.’ Hence in the hierarchy at the court of Ra he bore a 
title equivalent to Heir Apparent or Crown-prince of the 
Gods ; the throne belonged of right to him as the future 
king, and his seat was regularly styled the Chair of the 
Heir to the Throne.* And he passed on the inheritance to 
his son Osiris. In a hymn addressed to Osiris it is said 
that his father Seb gave him “the kingdom of the two 
Egypts. He made over to him the government of the lands 
for good luck and gave him this land into his hand; his 
water, his air, his herbs, all his herds, all that flies and all that 
hovers, his creeping things and his wild beasts, were given 
to the son of Nut, and the two lands (Upper and Lower 
Egypt) were content therewith.”° Earthly kings and queens | 
boasted of being heirs of Seb and of occupying his chair, as 
a proof of their legitimacy and their right to the throne.° 
The The connexion of Seb with the worship of the dead is 
Siu ana very slight ; nevertheless he is often named incidentally in 
.theworship the texts,’ particularly in the Book of the Dead. Thus he 
ofthedead. i; one of the company of gods who watch the weighing of 
‘the heart of the deceased in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. 
The righteous were provided with the magic words which 
enabled them to escape from the earth, wherein their bodies 
were laid, but the wicked were held fast by Seb. It was to 
Seb that the dead man prayed to open wide his two jaws 
for him, to unseal his eyes, and to loose his legs from the 


1 (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, of. cit. 4 H. Brugsch, of. ert. p. 578. 

ii, 95 sg.; H. Brugsch, of. cet. p. 577. 5 A, Erman, Die dgyptische Re- 
2 (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, of. c?t. ligton?, p. 38. 

ii. 98; H. Brugsch, of. cz. p. 580. 6 H. Brugsch, of. cit. p. 578. 
3A, Wiedemann, Religion of the 7 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the 


Ancient Egyptians, p, 231. Ancient Egyptians, p 231%. 





vi WORSHIP OF EARTH BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 355 


bandages in which they were swathed. To Seb the dead 
man appealed for help against serpents, and he never tired 
of boasting that his cakes “were on the earth with the god 
Seb”, and that the gods had declared that he was “to live 
upon the bread of Seb”. Again, a certain Nu, the overseer 
of the house of the overseer of the seal, is represented as 
saying, in a burst of joy at the prospect of his blissful 
future, “The doors of heaven are opened for me, the doors 
of earth are opened for me, the bars and bolts of Seb are 
opened for me”; and again, “I exchange speech with Seb, 
I am decreed to be the divine heir of Seb, the lord of the 
earth, and to be the protector therein. The god Seb 
refresheth me, and he maketh his risings to be mine.” ! 

As the father of his five children—Osiris, the elder 
Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys—the Earth-god Seb was 
called the Father of the Gods.” The Greeks identified him 
with their ancient and mysterious god Cronus.* In two 
passages of the Book of the Dead there is an allusion to a 
myth concerning Seb which may perhaps explain and justify 
his identification with Cronus. In one of these passages 
the dead man says, “I, even I, am Osiris, who shut in his 
father together with his mother on the day of making the 
ereat slaughter”, and the text adds, ‘“ Now the father is Seb, 
and the mother is Nut”. Here the Egyptian word for 
“slaughter” is shat, and we are told that there is no doubt 
whatever about its meaning. It is derived from a root 
Signy? sa toLcut. .“.to\ cut ini pieces .. ‘to sever!” ag Lhe 
eminent Egyptologist Brugsch conjectured that the reference 
was to a mutilation which Osiris inflicted on his father 
Seb, like the mutilation which the Greek god Cronus inflicted 
on his father Uranus (the Sky). He points out that the 
same word shat is applied in the Book of the Dead to the 
mutilation which the Sun-god Ra is said to have inflicted 
on himself, and that out of the drops of blood falling from 
his severed member certain deities are said to have sprung, 


1 (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Osiris (Berlin, 1850), p. 190. 
Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 95. 3H. Brugsch, of. cet. p. 576; A. 
Wiedemann, Aeligion of the Ancient 
2 H. Brugsch, Religion und Mytho- Egyptians, pp. 230 sg.; Plutarch, Zszs 
logie der alten Agypter, p. 5793~ and Osiris, 12, with G. Parthey’s note 
G. Parthey, /7utarch tiber Isis und (p. 190). 


Seb the 
Earth-god 
identified 
by the 
Greeks with 
Cronus: re- 
semblances 
in their 
myths. 


356 WORSHIP OF EARTH BY NON-AR VAN PEOPLES cu. vit 


just as from the blood of Uranus, mutilated by his son, the 
Furies and Giants are said to have originated in Greek 
mythology.t The parallel thus suggested between the 
Egyptian and the Greek myths may be carried a step further. 
For Osiris, who seems to have mutilated ‘his father Seb, was 
himself afterwards mutilated in like manner by his wicked 
brother Typhon, that is, Set; and in Greek mythology 
Cronus, who had mutilated his father Uranus, is said to 
have been in turn mutilated by his son Zeus.? As the life 
of the gods is regularly modelled on the life of men, the 
double parallel suggests that in certain families, or under 
certain circumstances, the practice of mutilation may have 
been hereditary. | 


1 H, Brugsch, of. cz¢t. p. 581; (Sir) 
E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the 
Egyptians, ii. 99 sg. As to the 
mutilation of Uranus by Cronus, see 
above, pp. 36 59. 
the Furies and Giants from the dripping 
blood of Uranus, see Hesiod, 7heog. 
180-186; Apollodorus, i. I. 4. 


As to the birth of’ 


2 Plutarch, Jszs and Ostris, 18. 


3 Dio Chrysostom, Or. xi. vol. i. 
p. 210, ed. L. Dindorf; Porphyry, De 
antro nympharum, 16; Aristides, Or. 
iii, vol, i.) p.. 35,:;ed. <Ga Dmdork: 
Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, 
Argon, iv. 983. 


CHAPTER V1ITI 
THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 


WE have seen that the Chinese personify and worship The _ 
the Sky as a great deity, the head of the pantheon.’ But coy on 
they also personify and worship the Earth, under a title a Mother 
which signifes “The Sovereign Earth”. In this capacity Soares ay 
the Earth is conceived as feminine, as a Mother Goddess, theSky-god 
the counterpart of the Sky or Heaven in his capacity of a aes 
Father God, the two great deities forming a married couple. ae 
Yet this personification and deification of the whole Earth religion. 
as a great Mother Goddess appears to be a comparatively 

late development of Chinese religion. It seems not to have 
originated earlier than the foundation of the Han dynasty 

in the second century before our era, and it was in the reign 

of the Emperor Wu (140-87 B.C.) that the worship of the 
Sovereign Earth as a goddess was definitely established. 
Henceforth the cult of Heaven and Earth attained a pro- 

digious importance; this natural dualism, embracing the 

entire universe, appears as the supreme expression. of Chinese 
religion.” 

But if the Chinese were long of attaining to the gener- Older 
alized idea of the whole Earth as a single divine being, aap 5 
they appear nevertheless to have worshipped from the hierarchyef 
earliest times a whole series or hierarchy of particular Perteuls' 
Earth-gods, that is, of deities who personified each a par- gods. 


ticular portion of ground, from the plot of land owned by 


1 Above, pp. 74 599. 
2 FE. Chavannes, Le 
Essat de Monographie dun Culte 
chinoise (Paris, 1910), pp. 520-525 
(Annalesdu Musée Guimet, Bibliotheque 
@’ Etudes, vol, xxi.). In the following 


T’ai Chan, 


account of the Chinese Earth-gods I 
follow closely the masterly exposition 
of Chavannes, a great scholar too early 
lost to his country and to learning. 
Compare M. Granet, Za Religion des 
Chinots (Paris, 1922), pp. 62 sg. 


357 


358 THE WORSHIP (OF EARTTHIN CHINA CHAP. 


a single family up to a whole province or kingdom; for 
the division of the earth or of the ground over which each 
of the Earth-gods presided was determined by the extent of 
the human group which occupied it. All these particular or 
local Earth-gods were conceived as males; they were the 
personifications of the energies resident in the soil.’ 

The Earth- At the base of this hierarchy of terrestrial divinities, 

godofland on the lowest rung of the ladder, stands the god of the 


owned bya 


family. plot of land owned by a single family. The seat of 
this deity used to be a place called ¢chong lreou, situated 
under an opening in the roof of the family dwelling. The 
characters of which his name is composed imply that he 
was at the centre, that is, that he concentrated in himself 
all the energies inherent in the landed property of the family, 
and further that he was exposed to the rain, in other words, 
that he was under the open sky to allow the earth or ground, 
which he personified, to participate in that general movement 
of exchange which constitutes universal life. The Earth- 
god thus seated at his shrine in the midst of the family 
dwelling was one of the five domestic deities to which in 


antiquity all Chinamen paid 


homage. The other four 


deities were the hearth or stove, in which burns the domestic 
fire; the well, in which resides the Water-spirit ; the outer 
door and the inner doors, the deities of which watch over 
the comings and goings through the doorways and so guard 
the whole house. In our days the domestic shrine of the 
Earth-god no longer exists under its old name (échong lieou), 
but its equivalent remains in the shape of a little local elf 
called fou tz chen to whom every family sacrifices; in the 
streets of every Chinese town, towards evening, sticks of 
incense are lighted in the open air and smoke in front of 
the elfs tablet at the doors of shops. This tribute is 
paid to him because, the earth being deemed the ultimate 
source of all the good things that men enjoy, these little 


1 E, Chavannes, ‘‘ Le Dieu du Sol 
dans la Chine antique”, Le 7’ az Chan, 
p. 437. Throughout his very learned 
and valuable essay on the Chinese 
Earth-god (pp. 437-525), Chavannes 
speaks of him consistently as Dzew du 
Sol, not as Dieu de la Terre; and Dieu 
du Sol might be rendered perhaps more 


exactly as ‘*God of the Ground or of 
the Soil” rather than as ‘* God of the 
Earth”, which is apt to be taken to 
signify **God of the whole Earth”, 
But I trust that this ambiguity will be 
obviated by the explanations and defini- 
tions in the text. . 


Vi THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 359 


local elves have come to be regarded as simply the deities 
of the family prosperity, and nowadays they are revered no 
longer as powers of nature, but as suerian spirits who help 
the family to make plenty of money.’ 

Above the family is the larger group of people called a The Earth 
ft, which we may perhaps translate by parish. Each parish, ge 
including twenty-five families, had its own Earth-god, and and 
the parishioners had orders to sacrifice to him on a holy day sours 
in the second month of spring; every family in the parish 
sent one of its members to assist at the ceremony.” Above 
the parish there was a larger territorial division, which we 
may compare to a county, it included two thousand five 
hundred hearths ; and the head magistrate of the county, 
whom we may compare to the sheriff, was bound to sacrifice 
to the county Earth-god twice a year. Under the Han 
dynasty, in the year 205 B.C, the Emperor Kao tsou gave Biennial 
orders to institute an Earth-god in every county; and Aa aaa 
few years later, in 197 B.C., he approved of an ordinance Se ie 
in virtue of which every Sheri was commanded to sacrifice yo and 
regularly a sheep and a pig to the Earth-god and the aves 
Harvest-god in the second month of spring and in the last county. 
month of the year. Thus we see that the county Earth- 
god had a sort of acolyte or colleague in the person of the 
Harvest-god. We shall find that Earth-gods of higher rank 
were similarly coupled with Harvest-gods; but the Harvest- 
god appears to have always remained in the position of a 
satellite, a mere reflection of the glory of the Earth-god, 
with whose destinies his own were inseparably linked.’ 

Under the Tcheou dynasty there existed, above the Earth-gods 
county, feudal kingdoms and, higher still, nine provinces. tN 
Each kingdom and each province had its own Earth-god and pro- 
and Harvest-god. The Han dynasty altered the higher ‘'"** 
local divisions and the number of the provinces; but each 
division or province had still its own Earth-god and Harvest- 
god, and in every case it was the lord-lieutenant or governor 


1 E. Chavannes, Ze 7’az Chan, pp. duces the seasons. Earth produces all 
438 sg. With regard to the earth as the sources of wealth”, 
the producer of all good things, see 2 E, Chavannes, Le 7’at? Chan, pp. 
The Li Ki, translated by James Legge, 439 sg. 
Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxvii. 3 -E, Chavannets, Le Z’az Chan, pp. 
(Oxford, 1885) p. 378, ‘‘Heaven pro- 441 sg. 


The two 
Earth-gods 
of the 
Chinese 
Emperor, 
the Great 
Earth-god 
and the 
Imperial 
Earth-god. 


‘The altar 
of the 
Earth-god, 


360 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA CHAP. 


who presided at the sacrifice of a sheep and a pig to the 
deity. But when the governor of a province went on a 
round of inspection at the head of an army, he always took 
the Earth-god with him, but never the Harvest-god ; because, 
with their usual good sense, the Chinese calculated that, as 
the governor could nowhere stop long enough to sow and 
reap, he would have no occasion to employ the services of 
the Harvest-god, and therefore it would be useless to cart 
that deity about with the rest of the baggage.’ 

Finally, passing over a multitude of Earth-gods instituted 
by many subordinate officials in their various capacities, we 
may notice the Earth-gods of the Chinese Emperor or Son 
of Heaven, as he was commonly styled by his subjects. Of 
these Earth-gods the Emperor hadtwo. One of them, called 
the Great Earth-god, had his altar in the imperial palace, 
opposite to’: the Ancestral Temple; his worship was estab- 
lished for the good of the whole empire. The other, called 
the Imperial Earth-god, had his altar in the sacred field, 
where the Emperor annually performed the ceremony of 
ploughing for the purpose of producing the millet which 
was to be used for the offerings in the Ancestral Temple. 
This latter Earth-god belonged in a peculiar sense to the 
Emperor; it was he, and not the Great Earth-god, whom 
the Emperor carried with him when he went to war; and 
it was in presence of the Imperial Earth-god, and not of the 
Great Earth-god, that the Emperor inflicted punishment on 
the guilty. A further distinction between these two Earth- 
gods of the very highest class was that the Great Earth-god 
was associated with a Harvest-god, but the Imperial Earth- 
god was not. 

The shrine of the Earth-god was marked by an altar of 
earth, and the same word (cho), which properly designates 
the Earth-god himself, was very often applied to the altar 
which symbolized him. The altar, in fact, was a mound 
which represented the whole of the surrounding ground ; as | 
the Chinese commentators constantly repeat, the whole of 
the ground is sacred, and therefore sacrifices should be 
offered to it everywhere, but as that is not possible, people 


1 E, Chavannes, Le 7’az Chan, pp. # E, Chavannes, Ze 7’az Chan, pp. 
442-444. 444-448. 


VIII LEEW OKRSHILCOP LARD fH INSCAINA 361 


choose certain spots and there erect heaps of earth in 
which the whole latent energies of the environment are 
concentrated." 

In the time of the Han dynasty the altar of the The altar 
Great Earth-god, situated in the imperial palace, was of a& tn 


Great 
rectangular shape, measuring fifty feet square; each side of Earth-god 


the altar was made of earth of a colour corresponding to ee 
that of the quarter which it faced, green for the east, red palace. 
for the south, white for the west, and black for the north ; 
on the top of the altar the earth was yellow.” The reason 
for the diversity of colours exhibited by the four different 
sides of the altar was this. When a vassal was invested by 
the Emperor with a fief, he received a clod of earth from 
the altar of the Great Earth-god in the imperial palace, and 
this clod was taken from that side of the altar which faced 
towards the quarter where the vassal’s fief was situated. 
Hence if the fief lay to the east, the clod was of green earth ; 
if the fief lay to the south, the clod was of red earth, and so 
-on. This clod, wrapped up in white herbs of a certain sort 
(mao), the vassal carried away with him to his fief, where he 
set it up as his Earth-God and worshipped it. Such was 
one of the regular rites of investiture; and there are 
good grounds for believing that it was very ancient. 
Under the Han dynasty the privilege of receiving a clod 
from the altar of the Great Earth-god in order to convert it 
into a local Earth-god appears to have been confined to the 
sons of the Emperor.® ) 

The altar of the Earth-god had to be in the open air ; The altar 
it was thought that he could only live in contact with the SE ke 
atmospheric influences, and that, cut off from them, he would had to be 

pine and waste away. Hence if you would render an Earth- "= ‘hs open 
god impotent, you have nothing to do but to enclose him in the altar of 
a building with a roof over his head. Accordingly, when itor 
the great conquéror T’ang had founded the dynasty of the deposed 
Yin or Shang and wished to extirpate by the roots the phir hetic 
vanquished Hia dynasty, the surest means that occurred to in order to 


vig ; ; : disable hi 
him for effecting his object was to remove the Earth-god of ee aa 


mischief. 
1 FE. Chavannes, Ze 7’az Chan, p. 451. 
450. 3 FE, Chavahnes, Le 7’az Chan, pp. 
2 E, Chavannes, Ze 7’at Chan, p. 452-459. 


362 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA CHAP, 


his predecessors ; but, failing in the sacrilegious attempt, he 
contented himself with shutting up the deity in a house. 
Afterwards, when his family was in turn ousted by the 
Tcheou, the founder of the new dynasty treated the 
Iarth-god of the deposed family precisely as they had 
treated the Earth-god of their predecessors; he built a 
house over him, but opened a window in the north wall of 
the building in order that the blighting principle of the yzz, 
that is, the principle of darkness and death, might alone 
play upon the deity, and so disable him for doing mischief. 
In the ancient Chinese books of ritual called the Zz Az we 
read that in the palace of the Emperor “ the altar of the 
Great Earth-god must needs be exposed to the hoar-frost 
and the dew, to the wind and the rain, in order that it may 
be in communication with the influences of the sky and of 
the earth. That is the reason why the Earth-god of a 
conquered dynasty is covered with a building; in that way 
he is no longer open to the action of the heavenly yang (the 
principle of light and life). As for the Earth-god of Po 
(the Earth-god of the deposed Yin or Shang dynasty), they 
made a window for him ‘on the north side in order that. the’ 
principle of the yz (the principle of darkness and death) 
might illuminate him.” ? 
Clods from Thus the worship of the Earth-god of the -conquered 
een Yin or Shang dynasty was maintained in a certain limited 
reine form at the court of their successors on the imperial throne. 
asawful. More than that, the Emperor. distributed clods: from athe 
warningsto vanquished Earth-god’s altar to his noblemen in order that 
noblemen. : 
they might carry them away and make local Earth-gods of 
them on their own lands, to serve them as awful warnings of 
the fate that would surely overtake them if they dared to 
rebel against their liege lord. When they looked upon the 
deity, languishing in captivity, how was it possible that, 
with his melancholy fate before their eyes, they could 
entertain even a thought of disloyalty to the emperor? 
That this was indeed the train of reasoning at the back of 
the Emperor’s mind in distributing the sods among his lords, 


1 EF. Chavannes, Ze 7’a/ Chan, pp. Chavannes’ translation. Po had been 
459-461. Compare 7h%e 77-A7?, trans- the capital of the conquered Yin or, 
lated by James Legge, Sacred Books of | Shang dynasty. The site was in the 
the East, vol, xxvii. p. 425. I follow present Ho-nan (Legge’s note, /.c.). 


VI11 LHE WORSHIPIOF LARTH AN CHINA 363 


is made clear by the following passage from the Zovu-touan 
of Ts’ai Yong. “In antiquity the Son of Heaven took the 
Earth-god of the conquered dynasty to give pieces of it to 
the lords, in order that out of these pieces they might make 
Earth-gods which should warn them to be on their guard. 
They walled up these Earth-gods of the conquered dynasty ; 
they covered their top in order that they might not com- 
municate with the sky ; they set up a palisade at their base 
in order that they might not communicate with the earth ; 
thus these Earth-gods were isolated from heaven and from 
earth ; they faced the north and were turned towards the 
principle of the yzz (the principle of darkness and death) 
to show clearly that they were dead.” ! 

From a passage of a Chinese commentator named 
Kou-leang we learn further that the building which enclosed 
the Earth-god of the conquered dynasty had to be near the 
Ancestral Temple, to which it acted as a screen.” 

The custom of imprisoning for life the superannuated The custom 
_Earth-god of a conquered dynasty as a sort of scare-crow ees 
for evil-doers appears not to have lasted beyond the Tcheou Earth-god 
-dynasty ; there is no mention of it in texts relating to Sheehy 
the Han dynasty. The memory of the custom, however, dynasty fell 
survived, for in the year 6 AD., under the usurper Wang iy aceon 

Mang, a proposal was made to revive the ancient practice. | 
His ministers reminded the usurper that “in antiquity, when 
a reigning family revolted against the commands of Heaven 
and was exterminated, they used to wall up the Earth-god 
of the family on four sides, cover the top, and surround 
the base with a palisade, to show that he could no longer 
communicate with the sky and the earth; they distributed 
pieces of this Earth-god to the nobles, in order that every 
time they went out they might see it, and that it might be 
for them a manifest warning”. Accordingly, the ministers 
suggested to the usurper that he should treat the Earth-god 
of the Han dynasty in like fashion by clapping him in gaol 
and distributing fragments of his broken body among the 
nobility in order to remind them perpetually of their duty.’ 


1. Chavannes, Ze 7a Chan, pp. 463 sg. : 
462 sg. 3 EF. Chavannes, Le 7’az Chan, pp. 
2 E. Chavannes, Le 7’ai Chan, pp. 465 sg. 


A sacred 
tree’ 
essential 

to the altar 
ofan Earth- 
god. 


Originally 
the tree was 
looked on 
as an 
embodi- 
ment of the 
Earth-god ; 
later it was 
viewed asa 
simple 
sign-post. 


364 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA CHAP. 


But for his proper worship the Earth-god required a tree 
as well as an altar. The Chinese dictionary Chouo wen tells 
us explicitly that “for every Earth-god they planted a tree 
of the sort which suited the soil”.’ Another Chinese text 
throws light on the geographical distribution of the trees 
which thus represented the Earth-god. It informs us that 
“the Great Earth-god was a pine-tree ; the Earth-gods of 
the East were thuyas; the Earth-gods of the South were 
catalpas ; the Earth-gods of the West were chestnuts; the 
Earth-gods of the. North were acacias.” ” 

The presence of a tree at every place where there was 
an Earth-god is attested by many passages of Chinese 
writers. Thus we read of an oak-tree of which the wood 
could not be used for any purpose ; so they kept the tree 
and turned it into an Earth-god. Again, we hear of the 
soul of a murdered man which passed into the tree of an 
Earth-god and shook the branches.® | 

In later times, from the Han dynasty onwards, the 
relation of the tree to the Earth-god was misunderstood, | 
and it was explained on shallow rationalistic principles as a 
simple sign-post to attract the attention of passers-by to the 
shrine, or as a memorial planted to commemorate some great 
event. But the ancient texts of the Tcheou dynasty suffice 
to prove that the tree in question had much deeper religious 
roots than the barren and paralysing scepticism of a later 
age allowed for. For they prove beyond question that the 
tree was essential to the Earth-god’s altar, nay that it was 
not distinguished from the deity himself; in short that the 


tree was the Earth-god. Is it not clear, in fact, even to the 


most purblind vision, dimmed by the mists of freethinking, 
that a fine tree concentrates in itself all the creative and 
nutritious virtues of the surrounding soil? Does not the tree 
spring from the earth as a living expression of her maternal 
fecundity? To this day a traveller in China passes from 
time to time great trees loaded with red cloths:on which the. 
votaries have recorded in black letters and touching language 
the expression of their gratitude to the arboreal deity. Why 


1 EF, Chavannes, Ze 7’az Chan, p. 467. 
466. 3 E. Chavannes, Le Z’az Chan, p. 
2 E. Chavannes, Le 7’az Chan, p. 468. , ; 


VIII THE WORSAIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 365 


then, in the name of common sense, should we doubt that 
the tree is a god, in fact, the Earth-god, who manifests him- 
self in this majestic form and verdurous garb?! If any 
lingering doubts could subsist in our minds on the subject, a 
simple consideration should suffice to set them at rest; the 
tree was so truly an expression of the vitality of the Earth- 
god, that while the altar of the Earth-god of a conquered 
dynasty was allowed to survive, the conquerors cut down 
the tree beside it to signify that the god was dead. 

In the most ancient times, indeed, the Earth-god appears At first the 

to have been represented, not by a single tree, but by diaries eee 
whole wood. This comes out in the oldest prayer to an represented 
Earth-god that is on record. In the time of T’ang, the °%3,""°" 
great conqueror who founded the second Chinese dynasty, 
there was a severe drought in the land. For five or seven Sacrifice 
whole years no harvest was reaped. At the end of that time eaaean 
they drew lots, and the lot declared that the prayer for rain toa sacred 
must be accompanied by a human sacrifice. In this emer- ¥0°4'" 
-gency the Emperor came forward and nobly offered himself drought. 
as a victim to be offered up for the salvation of his people 
to the wood of Sang. In presenting the sacrifice of himself 
to the wood the Emperor addressed to it the following solemn 
prayer: “If it is I who am guilty, the guilt extends not to 
the multitude ; if it is the multitude that is guilty, then let 
the guilt rest on me alone. Suffer not that for my fault the 
ghosts and the gods should blast the life of my people.” 
After that he consummated the great sacrifice by cutting, 
not his throat, but his hair and nails and offering the clip- 
pings to the deity as a substitute for his person. The sacri- 
fice was pepcbted) the people were content, and rain fell in 
abundance.® 

Thus the Earth-god appears for the first time surrounded The sacred 
by the religious horror of a sacred wood and calling from its ¥°O4.,.4 
gloomy depths for the sacrifice of a human victim to end toa single 
the drought that was desolating the country. To that call ite 
the Emperor promptly responded in his own person, and by 
a simple sacrifice of the superfluities of his person succeeded 


1 E. Chavannes, Le 7’ai Chan, pp. -472. 
he 472. 3 FE, Chavannes, Le 7’az Chan, pp. 


* FE, Chavannes, Ze 7’ai Chan, p. 472-475. 


The shrine 
of the 
Earth-god 
needed a 
sacred 
block or 
tablet of 
stone be- 
sides the 
sacred tree. 


This block 
or tablet 
seems to 
have been 
originally 


366 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA CHAP, 


In appeasing the divine wrath and saving his people. But 
by a melancholy process of religious decadence the sacred 
wood dwindled down to a single. tree, and in time, the winter 
of scepticism following hard on the summer of faith, even 
the solitary tree shed its sanctity like its leaves and was 
taken by blind infidelity for nothing better than a sign-post.' 

But the shrine of the Earth-god, to be complete, required 
a block of stone in addition to an altar and a sacred tree. 
For this block of stone the Chinese name is ¢échou. The 
word is now generally translated “tablet”, and in most 
Chinese religious ceremonies at the present time the /chow is 
in fact a wooden tablet with the God’s name inscribed on it. 
But certain rites, which are observed to this day, prove that 
the tablet, whether of wood or stone, was originally something 
more than a simple seat or lodging of the deity, it was his 
living image. Thus in the worship of ancestors one of the 


an image of essential ceremonies consists in what is called punctuating 


the deity, 


Shape and 
size of 
the sacred 
stone. 


the ancestral tablet which represents the deceased ; that is to 
say, the spots in the tablet where the eyes and ears. of the 
dead man are supposed to be are marked with points of 
blood ; the blood animates his eyes and ears and so enables 
the deceased to see and hear. This rite seems to show 
that originally the tablet was a rudimentary statue, whether 
of wood or stone, representing a ghost or a god. Similarly 
the Earth-god was figured in this uncouth shape beside the 
sacred tree, which was at first no other than the god himself, 
but which, as we have seen, came afterwards to be looked 
upon as a simple sign-post, when the deity had shifted his 
quarters from the tree to the tablet (¢chou) that represented 
him. Thus a Chinese writer of the ninth century of our 
era, speaking of the customs observed in the time of the 
Han dynasty, says: “For each of these Earth-gods they 
plant a tree to mark the place where he is to be found ; 
and besides they make a tablet (¢chou) to represent the 
divinity ”.” 

The tablet, if we may call it so, of the Earth-god was in 
fact a block or rather a shaft of stone which stood beside 
the god’s altar. What the exact shape and dimensions of 


1 E. Chavannes, Le 7’az Chan, pp. 2 E. Chavannes, Ze 7’azi Chan, pp. 
475 Sg. 476 sg. 


VHI THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 307 


©) 


the sacred stone were in antiquity we do not know; but 
from a document of 705 A.D. we learn that it was proposed 
to make it five feet high by two feet wide, tapering at the 
top and square at the base, and to bury half of the shaft 
in the ground in imitation of a. root. The proposal was 
adopted, and we know that precisely the same rules for 
shaping and planting the Earth-god’s sacred stone were 
observed hundreds of years later under the Song dynasty 
(960-1279 A.D.).' 

If now we ask what were the attributes of the Chinese why men 
Earth-god, and why men worshipped him, the first and most ernIRE SS 
obvious answer is that he was worshipped because the farmer god. 
required his help in tilling the ground. The labour of the 
husbandman aims at stimulating the fertility of the earth ; 
the sower sows the seed in the firm belief that there is a 
spirit in the ground who will cause the seed to bear fruit 
and multiply. Nothing therefore can be more natural and 
reasonable than that he should address his prayers to the 
-Earth-god in the second month of spring to entreat his 
favour for the future harvest, and that in the second month 
of autumn he should thank the deity for the crop he has 
reaped and gathered into his barns.” 

But here we are at first sight confronted with a difficulty. Relation of 
We have seen that the Earth-god is regularly coupled with esr tne 
a Harvest-god. Now if the husbandman addresses his Harvest- 
petitions and his thanks for the harvest to the Earth-god, °°" 
the question naturally arises, Where does the Harvest-god 
come in? In accepting the adoration of the farmer is not 
the Earth-god poaching on the preserves of his colleague? 

At the first blush it might certainly appear to be so, but a 
little reflection will convince us that each of the gods has his 
own proper function, and that, far from clashing, they work 
harmoniously into each other’s hands. The Harvest-god 
in fact expresses the energy of the Earth-god in so far as 
that energy is useful to man in the budding and growth of 
the cereals. But the powers of the Earth-god are by no 
means exhausted by these forms of his activity ; far from 
it; he exercises an influence infinitely more complex and 


1 E. Chavannes, Le 7'ai Chan, pp. 2 E. Chavannes, Ze 7’at Chan, pp. 
477 59. 478 sy. 


368 THE WORSHIP OF EARTITITNGCH IIa CHAP. 


The two more general, inasmuch as he personifies the great principle 
Panne of the yiz, which is opposed. to the other great principle of 
of Chinese the yang, just as the earth is opposed to the sky, and as 
eset darkness is opposed to light. Thus we see that, important 
the yang. as the Harvest-god unquestionably is, his importance is yet 
secondary to that of the Earth-god who contains within 
himself all the great cosmic forces which make up one of 
the two grand constituent principles of the universe.’ For, 
as every Chinaman is aware, the whole world is composed 
of the two antagonistic yet correlative principles of the yang 
and the zz, which by their mutual action and reaction, their 
attraction and repulsion, maintain in equipoise the universal 
framework of things. If Europe resolves the universe into 
hydrogen and electricity, or perhaps at bottom into positive 
and negative electrons, China resolves it into the positive 
and negative elements known respectively as the yang and 
the yzz. Of the two great principles, heaven or the sky is 
the chief storehouse of the yaxg, which is the principle of 
light, warmth, and life; earth is the chief storehouse of the 
yin, which is the principle of darkness, cold, and death.” 
This precious system of philosophy was first apparently 
eoraeeae revealed to China in a very ancient book known as the 
pounded in Y# Keng,’ which, with another called the Shu Kzng, has been 
King, Called the Bible of China.* It was composed by the famous 
King Wan and his equally famous son the Duke of Kau 
in the twelfth century before our era.” The work is held in 
high esteem by Chinese scholars and sages. In his old age 
Confucius declared that, if years were added to his life, he 
would give fifty of them to the study of the Y# and that 
then, enlightened by his long poring over the sacred volume, 
he might hope to escape from falling into serious errors. 
‘Indeed, he read the book so hard that the leathern binding 
was thrice worn out, and still in his enthusiasm the great 
master declared, “Give me several years more and I shall 


This 


1 FE, Chavannes, Le 7’az Chan, pp. 
479 Sq. 

2 As to the vang and the yz7 see 
J. J. M. de Groot, Zhe Heligtous 
System of China, ili. 940, iv. 12 sgq., 
67 sqg.; ¢7@., The Religion of the Chinese, 
pp. 3 57-5 16, 19, 55, 133 59., 136, 
ie 


3. 7he Yt King, translated by James 
Legge, Sacred hooks of the ast, vol, 
xvi, (Oxford, 1882) pp. 43, 423 s¢. 

4 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religion 
of the Chinese, p. 18. 

5 The Yi King, translated by James 
Legge, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 
xvi, (Oxford, 1882) pp. 3-6. 


VIII THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 369 


be master of the Y#”.' The European reader who peruses 

or merely inspects the work in question is apt to form a 
somewhat different opinion of its merits and to hesitate 
whether he should wonder more at the state of mind of the 
author who composed it or at that of the philosopher who 
admired it. The whole farrago of nonsense purports to set Scope of 
forth the mystic meaning of hexagrams or figures of six ise 
parallel and horizontal straight lines, one or more of which are 
usually divided in the middle. The following passage, which 
professes to reveal the meaning of a particular sort of hexa- 
gram called a /Z, may serve as a specimen of the treasures 

of wisdom unlocked to humanity in the sacred volume: 

“Li suggests the idea of one treading on the tail of a 
tiger, which does not bite him. There will be progress and 
success. 

“The first line, undivided, shows its subject treading his 
accustomed path. If he go forward, there will be no 

CLiOiue te. 

i “The third line, divided, shows a one-eyed man who 
thinks he can see; a lame man who thinks he can walk 
well; one who treads on the tail of a tiger and is bitten. 
All this indicates ill-fortune. We have a mere bravo acting 
the part of a great ruler. 

“The fourth line, undivided, shows its subject treading 
on the tail of a tiger. He becomes full of apprehensive 
caution, and in the end there will be good fortune.” ? 

But to return to the Chinese Earth-god. Since the The Earth- 
earth is identified with the principle of darkness, it is perfectly Serena. 
plain to the Chinese mind that the Earth-god must have a for solar 
hand in solar eclipses, since at such times the principle of °'Ps*: 
darkness (yzz) manifestly triumphs over the principle of 
light (yang). Accordingly, when such an untoward event 
happened, the Chinese undertook to restore the balance of 
nature which had been disturbed by the encroachment of 
_ the Earth-god, or the principle of darkness, upon the domain 
of the Heaven-god, or the principle of light. For Chinese 
philosophy identifies the earth with the moon, which in its 


1 The Yi King, translated by James 2 The Yt King, translated by James 
Legge, Sacred Books of the East, vol. Legge, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 
xvi. (Oxford, 1882) /itroduction, p.1. xvi. (Oxford, 1882) pp. 78 s¢. 


VOL. I 2B 


370 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA CHAP. 


turn represents the principle of darkness (yzz), while the sun 
represents the principle of light. Hence, when the moon 
causes an eclipse by obstructing the rays of the sun, 
the conclusion is obvious; it is the farth-god who is 
really responsible for the obstruction by breaking bounds 
Conduct of and trespassing on the celestial sphere. Consequently it is 
Bisa oe necessary to compel or persuade him to retreat within his 
eclipses of Proper limits and leave the great luminary alone. For this 
the sun. purpose the Chinese used to beat drums, to tie a red cord 
round the Earth-god’s altar, and to sacrifice a victim to him. 
The beating of the drums was a martial demonstration to 
intimidate the deity; the red cord tied round his altar 
was a mode of putting him in the stocks; and the victim 
offered to him was meant to soothe his agitated feelings, 
which had naturally been ruffled by the menacing rub-a-dub 
of the drums and the galling constriction of the red cord.’ 
There are some grounds for thinking that of old the people 
did not content themselves with beating drums at an eclipse, 
but that they also shot arrows at the moon or the Earth-god 
(the two being practically identical) in order to force him to 
let go his hold on the sun.” 
In times of excessive rain as well as of solar eclipses 
Seat the Earth-god was held responsible for disturbing the course 
for of nature, since he was, so to say, a tool or instrument of 
ei the great principle of the yz”, which includes damp as well 
tied up with as darkness and death in its scope. Accordingly, to stop 
aredcord. the rain by restricting the activity of the Earth-god they 
tied the god up with a red cord, which they passed ten 
times round him or his altar. However, unlike the similar rite 
practised at solar eclipses, the custom of tying up the Earth- 
god in heavy rain seems to be comparatively modern, dating 
perhaps from the second century of our era, and apparently 
it had no great vogue and soon died out.® 


The Farth- 


1 FE. Chavannes, Le 7’aiz Chan, pp. 
480-490. 

2 E. Chavannes, Le 7’ai Chan, pp. 
486 sg. According to Chavannes, the 
ritual of tying a red cord round the 
altar of the Earth-god during an eclipse 
is very ancient, since its original sig- 
nificance (that of fettering the Earth- 
god and so preventing him from doing 


mischief) was already a matter of doubt 
and discussion in the second century 
B.C. See E, Chavannes, of. czt. pp. 
484-486. 


3 FE. Chavannes, Ze 7’az Chan, pp. 
49359. The treatise Zong Tchong-chou, 
which mentions the practice, is a work 
of the second century A.D. (¢@. p. 570). 


VII LHE. WORSHIP OF EARTA IN CHINA 371 


But if in time of excessive rain it was necessary to re- Treatment 
strain the too exuberant energies of the Earth-god, in time of Se ae 
drought, on the contrary, it was essential to encourage him altar in 
and remove any obstacles that might be standing in the way were 
of his discharging his watery. functions as representative of 
the great yz principle. For that purpose his altars were 
swept and cleaned, obviously with the view of setting 
free his energies to wrestle with the drought. Further, 
for the same wise end, the villagers made a hole in the 
Karth-god’s altar and led a channel to-it from a little 
canal outside the village. By thus laying on the water 
to the Earth-god’s abode they hoped no doubt to stimulate 
him to turn on the celestial water-taps, of which he natur- 
ally had the full control. As a further reminder of what 
was expected of him, they put five frogs on his altar, that 
their croaking for rain might induce him to grant their 
prayer.’ 

But if with every incentive and inducement to right Recal- 
conduct, the Earth-god proved recalcitrant and obstinately eh tien 
refused either to abate the rain or to terminate the drought, cashiered. 
there was nothing for it but to cashier him and give his 
office to another deity, who, it was hoped, would prove 
more regardful of human wishes and necessities. Thus the 
great religious teacher, Mencius, a pupil of Confucius, wrote 
that, “When the victims have been perfect, when the millet 
offered in the vases has been pure, when the sacrifices have 
been performed at the prescribed seasons, if nevertheless 
there are droughts and inundations, then we change the 
Earth-gods and Harvest-gods, and institute new deities in 
their stead ”.° 

But the Earth-god does not restrict his activity to ate: 
superintending and promoting the agricultural operations Ob eden * 
sowing and harvest. Asa personification of the great yz death and 

. . . . executions. 
principle he presided at death and executions. One of the 
very early sovereigns of China threatened that if his soldiers 
disobeyed him in a forthcoming battle, he would put them to 
death before the altar of the Earth-god ; at the same time 
he promised that those who obeyed him should be rewarded 


1 E, Chavannes, Le 7’ai Chan, pp. 2 E, Chavannes, Ze Z’aiz Chan, pp. 
495 59. 393 1595 


The Earth- 
god and his 
counterpart 
the 
Ancestral 
Temple. 


372 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA CHAP. 


in presence of his ancestral spirits.’ Similarly, when in the 
eleventh century before our era King Wu triumphed over 
the last sovereign of the Yin dynasty and compelled him to 
commit suicide, he repaired to the shrine of the Earth-god 
and rubbed the blood of his victims on the altar or image of 
the deity, thus communicating fresh vital energy to him ; 
and in presence of this Supreme Judge he proclaimed to 
Heaven and to the people of the conquered prince the 
crimes for which he had inflicted the punishment.” In the 
year 640 B.C. a petty prince of Chan-tong sacrificed a dis- 
loyal vassal to the Earth-god. The historian adds that by 
this exemplary punishment the prince hoped to reduce to 
submission the barbarians who then occupied all the eastern 
part of Chan-tong. And the sacrifice of one or more 
prisoners of war to the Earth-god after a victory appears to 
have been prescribed by ancient Chinese ritual.’ 

Just as in the physical world the principle of the yzz is 
balanced by the principle of the yang, so the Earth-god has 
his counterpoise in the Ancestral Temple. The parallelism 
between the two is rigorously carried out. The Earth-god 
stands for the principle of darkness (yzz): hence his altar is 
placed to the right, that is, to the west of the royal palace, 
because the west is the domain of darkness. The Ancestral 
Temple represents the principle of light (vamg): hence it 
is built to the left, that is, to the east of the royal palace, 
because the east is the domain of light, being the place of 
sunrise. And just as universal life is dominated by the two 
principles of the yzz and the yang, so the national life is 
dominated in everything by the Earth-god and the Ancestral 
Temple: The presence of this pair of tutelary powers con- 
stitutes the true seat of government: the capital is founded 
on the altar of the Earth-god and the Ancestral Temple. 
When a sovereign builds or chooses a city to serve as 
his residence, his first care is to establish the altar of the 
Earth-god and the Ancestral Temple.’ 


1 The Shi King, translated by James adieu du sol”. 
Legge, Sacred Books of the East, vol. 2 E. Chavannes, Le Zaz Chan, p. 
ili, (Oxford, 1879) p.77; E. Chavannes, 507. 
Le T’at Chan, p. 77. Legge translates 3 E. Chavannes, Ze 7’az Chan, pp. - 
‘* shall be put to death before the altar 508-510. 
of the spirits of the land” ; Chavannes 4 FE. Chavannes, Ze 7’ai Chan, pp. 
translates ‘‘de /es faire périr devant le 511 Sg. 


VIII THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 373 


But it was not enough that these two divine powers On going 
should be installed at the capital on either side of the royal Haake 
palace: it was essential that they should attend the monarch Emperor 
when he went forth to war, in order that they might keep ateuced Gy 
him safe under the shadow of their wings. But as it was representa- 

; ° ° tives of the 
practically impossible to transport a temple and an altar Farth-goa 
among the baggage of the army, the sovereign had to be 4nd the 

é Ancestral 
content to be followed by a special car, called “the car of Temple. 
purity”, in which were placed the stone shaft representing 
the Earth-god and the wooden tablet representing one 
of the ancestors.'. The Earth-god had previously been 
sprinkled with holy water by the Grand Magician, who had 
also smeared blood on the drums of the warriors. Thus the 
army marched forth to battle, followed by the Earth-god 
and the Ancestor, who, refreshed by the sacrifices which the 
Grand Magician and the subordinate Master of Ceremonies 
had offered to them, stimulated the valour of the troops from 
a strategic position in the rear. If defeat instead of victory 
attended the arms of the sovereign, on the return of the 
beaten army the Earth-god and the Ancestor were publicly 
degraded, the care of their worship being taken from their 
usual ministers and left to an inferior official.” 

Thus, whether in the capital or in the camp, the Earth- Together 
god and the Ancestral Temple are always present as the ec 
expression of the spiritual reality of the kingdom. They Ancestral 

: . . : Temple 
symbolize everything that assures the unity and continuance represent 
of the social group, to wit, a common soil and a common thespiritual 
inheritance, that common inheritance being summed up in Pgh aee 
the continuity of the princely family. By means of the P™pire. 
Ancestral Temple the existence of the ancient princes is 
perpetuated and therefore confers on their descendants an 
authority such as no single individual could wield: the altar 
of the Earth-god concentrates in itself all the vitality of the 
fruitful soil. Together, the temple and the altar furnish a 
guarantee to the people that they will be governed and fed ; 
the first object of royalty is to maintain, by the appropriate 
sacrifices, the full efficacy of this twofold protection. That 


is why, in the words of a Chinese text, the prince must 


1 E, Chavannes, Ze 7’ai Chan, p. 2 E, Chavannes, Ze 7”az¢ Chan, pp. 
REZ. 512-514. 


Intimate 
unionof the 
Iearth-god 
with the 
Ancestral 
Temple 
shown in 
various 
ways. 


To the last 
the ancient 
Karth-god, 
the Harvest 
god, and 
the 
Ancestral 
Spirits 
continued 
to be 
worshipped 
beside the 
two great 
divinities, 
Father Sky, 
and Mother 
Earth. 


374 LAL AGORS HLL) OL MIGA LOL fies ty aed CHAP. 


above everything “preside over the ltarth-gods and Harvest- 
gods and attend to the sacrifices offered to the ancestors”. 
In countless passages of Chinese literature the emperors 
refer the prosperity of their reigns, as the Emperor Wen did 
in 167 BC. “to the supernatural support of the Ancestral 
Temple and to the blessing of the Earth-god and the 
Harvest-god ”,’ 

The intimate union of the Earth-god and the Harvest- 
god with the Ancestral Temple, is shown in many ways. 
On the point of setting out on a military expedition, the 
commander repaired to the Ancestral Temple there to receive 
his marching orders, and he went to the altar of the Earth- 
god to partake of the raw flesh offered in sacrifice. When- 
ever a great calamity happened, whether in heaven or on 
earth, the sacrifices prescribed by the ritual were offered to 
the Earth-god and the Harvest-god and to the ancestors at 
their temple.” In the Ancestral Temple of the Emperor 
and at his altar of the Earth-god one of the essential rites 
of sacrifice was to take portions of the flesh of the victims 
and give them to certain persons to eat for the purpose of 
strengthening their loyalty to the imperial house by this 
species of communion. At one time, under the Tcheou 
dynasty, the privilege of thus communicating with the 
sovereign was nominally restricted to noblemen bearing the 
same family name as the king, but in fact it was extended 
to other princes and high dignitaries. The flesh offered in 
the Ancestral Temple was cooked; the flesh offered to the 
Earth-god was raw, because, we are told, as a god of war and 
of executions he delighted in blood, whereas the ancestors, 
less ferocious, preferred to eat their victuals roast or boiled.* 

Thus-to the last, beside the colossal figures of Father 
Sky and Mother Earth, which with the growth of Empire 
loomed ever larger in the national pantheon, the Earth-god, 
the Harvest-God, and the ancestral spirits in their temple 
continued to subsist and to receive the homage of their 
worshippers, witnessing by their immemorial sanctity to 
beliefs bred in the very bone of the Chinese race. These 


1 FE. Chavannes, Le Z’at Chan, pp. 516. 
514 59. 3 KE, Chavannes, Le 7’ai Chan, pp. 
2 EF. Chavannes, Le Z’at Chan, p. -§17-519. 


VIII "ETHE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN CHINA 375 


ancient deities represent the simple religion of the husband- 
man, who in his rude daily task counted on the support of 
his forefathers, dead and gone, as a child trusts to the heip 
and protection of his living father, while at the same time 
he threw himself on the mercy of the God of his native 
Earth, beseeching him not to blight his hopes of an abundant 
harvest. This local and family worship is the deepest 
stratum of religious thought in China: nothing in that great 
country savours of a more remote antiquity than the Earth- 
god and the Ancestral Temple.’ 

1 J, Chavannes, Ze 7az Chan, p. my gratitude to that great scholar for 
525. The last paragraph inthe text is the debt I owe him in this section of 


practically a translation of Chavannes’ my work. 
conclusion. I desire again to express 


The wor- 
ship of 
Mother 
Earth 
(Dharti 
Mata) 
among the 
Hindoos 
of the 
Punjab 
and Bengal, 


CG EUAS PE EKG 
THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA 


8 1. The Worship of Earth among the Hindoos 


IN modern India the earth is worshipped as a goddess both 
by Hindoos and Dravidians, the aboriginal inhabitants of 
the country. To the Hindoos the goddess is known as — 
Dhartt Mata or Mother Earth. In the Punjab a pious 
Hindoo does obeisance to her and invokes her when he 
rises from his bed in the morning; and even those who 
are less punctilious in the matter of religion comply with 
the same custom when they begin to plough or to sow. 
When a cow or a buffalo is first bought, or when she first 
gives milk after calving, the first five streams of milk 
drawn from her udders are allowed to fall on the ground 
in honour of the Earth-goddess, and at every milking the 
first stream of milk is similarly devoted to her. So, too, 
when medicine is taken, a little of it is sprinkled on the 
ground in honour of the deity.’ As the digging of the 
foundations of a new house naturally disturbs the Earth- 
goddess, she must be worshipped when the house is occupied 
for the first time. In Bengal the chief festival in her honour 
is held at the hot season, when she is supposed to suffer 
from the infirmity common to women. All ploughing, 
sowing, and other work cease during that time, and widows 
in Bengal refrain from eating cooked rice. The Earth- 


1 (Sir) Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, Out- See Sir Henry M. Elliot, Memozrs ox 
lines of Panjab Ethnography (Calcutta, the History, Folk-lore, and Distribu- 
1883), p. 114. Compare W. Crooke, | tton of the Races of the North Western 
The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Provinces of India, edited by J. Beames 
Northern India (Westminster, 1896), (London, 1869), ii. 290. 

i. 26. Dharti means ‘‘the earth”. 


376 


cH 1x WORSA/P OF EARTH AMONG THE HINDOOS 377 


goddess is also worshipped at the family rites of marriage 
and childbirth.’ At Chunar in Bengal, after a long drought, 
the women assembled in a field from which all men were 
excluded. Three of them, members of a farmer’s family, 
stripped themselves naked; two were yoked to a plough 
like oxen, and the third held the plough handle. Then they 
imitated the operation of ploughing, while the woman who 
held the plough-handle cried out, “O Mother Earth! bring 
parched grain, water, and chaff. Our stomachs are breaking 
to pieces from hunger and thirst.” After that the landlord 
and accountant approached them, and laid down some grain, 
water, and chaff in the field. The women then dressed and 
returned home.” | 

The Hindoos of the Bombay Presidency similarly regard 
the earth as one of the great deities and worship it on many 
occasions, especially when anything is to be built on its 
surface. In the Deccan a Hindoo, on rising in the morning, 
asks pardon of the earth before he steps on the floor. Thus, 
before setting foot on the ground, he will say: “O Goddess, 
who is clothed (surrounded) by the sea, whose breasts are 
mountains, and who is the wife of Vishnu, I bow down to 
thee; please forgive the touch of my feet. O Goddess 
Earth! who art born by the power of Vishnu, whose surface 
is of the colour of a conch shell and who art the storehouse 
of innumerable jewels, 1 bow down to thee.”*® Again the 
Earth-mother is worshipped at the digging of a well or 
of a sacrificial pit, at the making of a tank, at the laying 
of the foundation-stone of a house, or at any other construct- 
ive work raised upon or made in the ground. The intention 
of the ceremony is to propitiate the goddess in order that 
she may not interrupt the operations. The owner or the 
person interested in the new construction poursa little water 
on the earth where the foundation-pit is to be dug, sprinkles 
red lac and red powder, places a betel-nut and a few precious 
coins, and digs out the first clod of earth with his own hands. 


1 W. Crooke, Natives of Northern 
India (London, 1907), p. 232. 

2 North Indian Notes and Queries, 
i. (1891-1892) p. 210, § 1161. For 
similar ceremonies to procure rain, see 
Kk. V. Russell, Zy2bes and Castes of 


the Central Provinces of Judia (London, 
1916), ili, 106; Zhe Golden Bough, 
Part I. Zhe Magic Art and the Evolu- 
tion of Kings, 1. 282 sq. 

3 R. E. Enthoven, 7he Folklore of 
Bombay (Oxford, 1924), pp. 81, 87. 


The wor- 
ship of 
Mother 
Earth 
among the 
Hindoos 
of the 
Bombay 
Presidency, 


Worship of 


Mother 
Earth on 


Dasara day. 


Worship 
of Mother 
Earth on 
various 
occasions, 


Worship of 
, offering her coco-nuts, fowls, rice mixed with curds, and 


Earth at 
sowing an 
harvest. 


378 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


Some of the things offered to Earth at such times are betel- 
nuts and betel-leaves, a bowl, green garments and the five 
precious things (fancharatna), to wit, gold, silver, copper, 
coral, and pearls.’ 

On the Dasara day, which is the tenth day of the bright 
half of the month of Ashvin (September-October) Hindoo 
kings go out in state with their ministers and subjects to 
worship the Earth-mother and the holy shami tree (Prosopis 
spicigera). A wetted plot of ground is first dug over with 
pikes, tender-wheat plants and sfammz leaves are then mixed 
with the muddy earth, and the whole is kneaded into little 
balls. A small coin and a betel-nut are inserted in each 
ball, and every worshipper receives one of the balls as a 
mark of good luck. Afterwards the wheat-plants are ex- 
tracted from the balls and are allowed to grow in an earthen 
vessel filled with clay till they have sprouted to the height 
of a span, when they are taken from the vessel and used.’ 
Wheat-plants thus cultivated in the worship of Earth remind 
us of the Gardens of Adonis cultivated in the worship of 
that sad oriental deity. 

Again, Earth is worshipped when treasure is buried in 


‘the ground, and when a marriage procession reaches the 


boundary of the bridegroom’s village. When presents are 
given to Brahmans outside the limits of the village, the 
Earth-mother is worshipped by pouring milk on the ground 
and by placing seven betel-nuts and seven copper coins 
thereon. Some women of the Thana District, in the 
Bombay Presidency, worship the Earth daily during the 
four months of the rainy season, at the end of which they 
give a Brahman a piece of land or the equivalent of it 
in money.” 

At sowing and harvest farmers appease the Earth by 


so forth. On the fifteenth day of the bright half of the 
month of Ashvin (September-October) every farmer prepares | 
some sweetmeats in his house and takes them to his farm. 
There he gathers five stones, worships them, and offers the 


_ E. Enthoven, of. c’t. pp. 81 sg. 4h, E, Enthoven, of. cet. p. 84. 
_ E, Enthoven, of, cz¢t. pp. 82 sg. . 
. E. Enthoven, of, czt. p. 83. 5 RK. E. Enthoven, of. cit. p. 87. 


mailer ant 
are 


ine ONS .OLVMARLA AMONG: THE DRAVIDIANS 379 


sweetmeats to the Earth. Afterwards he takes a portion 
of the food and scatters it over the farm. The members 
of his family then gather there and eat a hearty meal. 
In the evening the person who carried the food to the 
farm picks up some grains of barley and puts them in a 
basket. On return home the grains are thrown over the 
house.' 

In the Deccan, when new grain is heaped on the 
threshing-floor, Mother Earth is worshipped by offering to 
her cooked food or some animal. At the time when a stake, 
to which the bullock is to be tethered, is set up in the 
middle of the threshing-floor, a coco-nut is offered to the 
Earth. Again, red powder is offered to the Earth at the 
time of ploughing.” At the foundation of a new village, 
when the gates have been set up, Mother Earth is wor- 
shipped, and afterwards the headman, accompanied by a 
Brahman reciting incantations, either winds a cotton thread 
besmeared with red lac round the village or pours a stream 
of milk round the village boundaries.’ 


§ 2. The Worship of Earth among the Dravidians 


Among the Dravidian tribes of Central India the worship 
of the earth prevails widely.» Thus among the Oraons, a 
primitive Dravidian people of Chota Nagpur, when a culti- 
vator wishes to begin transplanting his rice-seedlings, he 
must employ a village priest to make an offering to Mother 
Earth (Dhartimat). Accompanied by the priest, the culti- 
vator repairs to the field, whither bundles of rice-seedlings 
have already been brought. He takes with him a pot of 
rice-beer, and on arriving at the field the priest pours a little 
of the beer on the ground as a libation, while he invokes the 
goddess, saying, “O Mother Earth! may we have plenty 
of rain and a bumper crop. Here is a libation for thee.” 
Next the priest plants with his own hands five rice-seedlings 
on the spot where the rice-beer has been poured. That 
done, the women begin to transplant the rest of the seedlings 


1 R. E. Enthoven, of. cit. p. 87. 4 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 
2 R. E. Enthoven, of. cz/. p. 87 sg. - Folk-lore of Northern India (West- 
3 R. E. Enthoven, of, czt. p. 302. minster, 1896), i. 30. 


Worship of | 
Earth at 
threshing 
and 
ploughing. 


Worship 
of Mother 
}farth 
among the 
Oraons of 
Chota 
Nagpur. 


Marriage 
of the 
Earth- 
goddess 
to the 
Sun-god. 


380 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


J 


on the fields.'. Every year the Oraons celebrate the marriage 
of the Earth-goddess to the Sun-god in order to ensure the 
fertility of the ground. ‘The rite, which goes by the name 
of Sarhul, is celebrated in the month of May, when the sa/ 
tree is in bloom. In it the divine bridegroom, the Sun-god, 
is personated by the village priest, and the divine bride, the 
Earth-goddess, is personated by the priest’s wife. We are 
told that “the object of this feast is to celebrate the mystical 
marriage of the Sun-god (Lhagawan) with the Goddess- 
earth (Dhartt-maz), to induce them to be fruitful and give 
good crops”. At the same time all the minor deities or 
demons of the village are propitiated, in order that they may 
not hinder the beneficent activity of the Sun-god and the 
Earth-goddess. On the eve of the appointed day no man 
may plough his fields, and the priest, accompanied by some 
of the villagers, repairs to the sacred grove, where he beats 
a drum and invites all the invisible guests to attend the 
great feast on the morrow. Very early next morning, before 
cock-crow, holy water is fetched from the sacred spring in a 
new pot by an acolyte, who carries it secretly to the priest’s 
house. During the morning victims for the sacrifice are 
collected from the houses. In the afternoon the people all 
gather at the sacred grove, and the priest proceeds to consum- 
mate the sacrifice. The first victims to be immolated are a 
white cock for the Sun-god and a black hen for the Earth- 
goddess ; -and as the feast is the marriage of these great 
deities the marriage is performed over the two fowls before 
they are despatched. Amongst other things both birds are 
marked with vermilion, just as a bride and bridegroom are 
marked at a human marriage ; and the earth is also smeared 
with vermilion, as if it were a real bride, on the spot where 
the sacrifice is offered. Sacrifices of fowls or goats to the 
minor deities or demons follow. Meantime the acolyte has 
collected flowers of the sa/ tree and set them round the place 
of sacrifice, and he has also fetched the holy water from the 
priest’s house. A procession is now formed and the priest 
is carried in triumph to his own abode. There his wife has 
been watching for him, and on his arrival the two go through 


1 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Ordons of Chota Nagpur (Ranchi, 1915), pp. 
143, 441. 


IX WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 381 


the marriage ceremony, applying vermilion to each other in 
the usual way “to symbolize the mystical marriage of the 
Sun-god with the Earth-goddess”. Meantime all the women 
of the village are standing on the thresholds of their houses, 
each with a winnowing-fan in her hand. In the fan are two 
cups, one empty to receive the holy water, the other full of 
rice-beer for the refreshment of the priest. At each house 
he distributes flowers and holy water to the women, and 
blesses them, saying, “ May your rooms and granary be filled 
with rice, that the priest’s name may be great”. 
holy water which he leaves at each house is sprinkled over 
the seeds that have been kept to sow next year’s crop. 
Having blessed the household, the priest drinks the rice- 
beer that is offered him, and as he repeats his benediction 
and his potation at every house, he is naturally very drunk 
by the time he*gets to the end of the village. “By that 
time every one has taken copious libations of rice-beer, and 
all the devils of the village seem to be let loose, and there 
follows a scene of debauchery baffling description—all these 
to induce the Sun and the Earth to be fruitful.”' Before 
the marriage of Sun and Earth has thus been celebrated in 
April or May no Oraon may manure his fields; for up to 
that time, in the opinion of the Oraons, Mother Earth has 
remained a virgin since the preceding harvest ; how then, 
they argue, could it be lawful to fecundate her before she is 
duly married ?? 

But besides the beneficent goddess of the cultivated earth, 
who fosters the growth of the crops, there are malignant 
spirits who have to be appeased whenever an Oraon 


1 Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., ‘* Religion 


The 


and Customs of the Uraons”, A/emozrs 
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i. 
No. 9 (Calcutta, 1906), pp. 144-146. 
Compare E. T. Dalton, Descriptive 
Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872), 
p- 261 (who does not mention the 
Sun-god, though he speaks of the 
marriage of Dharti, the Earth); Rev. 
F, Hahn, ‘‘Some Notes on the Religion 
- and Superstitions of the Oraos”, 
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 
Ixxii. Part III. (Calcutta, 1904) p. 12; 


Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Ordons of 


Chota Nagpur, pp. 167, 279. Accord- 


takes place ‘‘ towards the end of March, 
or beginning of April, but any day 
whilst the sal trees are in blossom will 
answer”. According to Mr. S. C. Roy 
(op. czt; p. 279) the marriage is cele- 
brated in April. I have described the 
marriage of the deities elsewhere. See 
The Golden Bough, Part I. The Magic 
Art and the Evolution of Kings, i, 
76 sg., 148; zd., Part IV. Adonis, 
Attis, Osiris, i. 47 5q. 


2 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Ordons 
of Chota-Nagpur, pp. 167, 279. 


Propitia- 
tion of 
malignant 
Spirits at 
reclaiming 


‘ing to Col. Dalton (2.c.), the ceremony Waste land 
re Y for 


cultivation. 


Worship 
of Mother 
Earth in 
Hoshanga- 
bad at the 
end of 
sowing, 


382 WORSHTP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


encroaches on their domain by reclaiming some of the land 
for cultivation. On such an occasion the cultivator sacrifices 
a fowl or an animal to pacify the wrathful spirit, lest some 
misfortune befall his family. The same procedure is followed 
when a house is to. be built on waste land. If within a 
short time after a plot of waste land has been reclaimed or 
a house built on it, there should occur a case of sickness or 
death to man or beast in the family, it is believed to be 
caused by the offended spirit of the land. Accordingly 
the master of the family vows to offer to the angry spirit a 
particular animal or fowl, if the sick person or animal 
recovers, or if no other death happens in the family within 
a certain time. Asa pledge of the fulfilment of the vow, 
the dedicated animal or fowl is set apart and fed on sacri- 
ficial rice.! 

In Hoshangabad, the end of the sowing is celebrated by 
the worship of Mother Earth, here called Machandré. The 
ceremony is intended to promote the fertility of the ground. 
Every cultivator performs the worship for himself in the 
company of his family and servants. At the edge of one of 
his fields he puts up a little semicircle or three-sided wall of 
clods about a foot high, meant to represent a hut. This is 
covered with a certain sort of green grass (/mmperata spontanea) 
in imitation of thatch. At the two ends of the hut two posts 
of a certain wood (Butea frondosa) are erected, with leaves 
round the tops, like those which are put up at marriage. 
They are tied to the thatch with red thread. This little house 
is the temple of Mother Earth (MZachand77). In the middle 
of it a small fire is kindled, and a little milk is set to boil on — 
it in a tiny earthen pot. The milk is allowed to boil over | 
as a sign of abundance. While this is going on, the plough- 
men gather in a field and drive their bullocks at a trot, 
striking them wildly; it is the end of the year’s labour for 
the cattle. The cultivator meanwhile offers a little rice, 
molasses, and saffron to Mother Earth, and then makes two 
tiny holes in the ground to represent granaries; into the 
holes he drops a few seeds of grain and covers them over, as 
a symbol of prayer, that his granary may be filled with the 
produce of the land. After that he dabs a little saffron 

1 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Oraons of Chota Nagpur, pp. 148 sq. 


IX WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 383 


on the foreheads of the ploughmen and the bullocks, and ties 
a red thread round the horns of the cattle. Thereupon: the 
animals are let go; and the ploughmen run off at full speed 
across the country, scattering boiled wheat in token of 
abundance. This concludes the ceremony, and every one 
returns home.’ 

Many similar customs are observed by the jungle tribes Worship 
of South Mirzapur. The Korwas regard Mother Earth}. 
(Dhartt Mata) as one of their chief deities. She lives in among the 
the general village shrine under a sa/ tree (Shorea robusta). ba 
In the month of Aghan (November-December) she _ is of South 

° as ; ‘ Mirzapur, 
worshipped with flowers and the offering of a goat. When 
she is duly worshipped, the people believe that the crops 
will prosper and that no epidemics will break out. The 
Pataris also acknowledge her divinity, and worship her in 
August. The local priest (dezga) offers her a goat, a cock, 
and rich cakes. She is also worshipped in the cold weather 
before the grain and barley are sown, and again on the 
threshing-floor before the winnowing begins. The flesh of 
the victims is eaten by the males and unmarried girls; no 
grown-up girl or married woman may partake of it. The 
Ghasiyas also believe in Mother Earth (Dhartz Mata), She 
is their village goddess and receives as an offering a ram, or 
a goat, or cakes. The offering is presented by the local 
priest (dazga); the materials are provided by a general 
contribution levied on the village. The Kharwars worship 
her at the village shrine before the wood-cutting and 
ploughing begin. They also perform a special service in 
her honour known as the “worship of greenery” (Harzyérz. 
Pijd) at the time when the rice is transplanted. In 
November they perform the “ thatching-grass” worship (Kar 
Pijd) at the season when they begin to cut the thatching- 
gtass (Khar). A cock, some leaves of the Bassta latifolia, 
and parched grain are offered to her. The service is 
performed by the local priest, who receives the offerings ; 
none but males are allowed to attend. Similarly the 
Pankas worship her before sowing and harvesting the grain. 
They and the Bhuiyars offer a pig and some liquor at the 


1 W. Crooke, ofular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India, i. 31, 
quoting Elliott, Seté/ement Report, 125. 


384 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA _ Char. 


more important agricultural seasons. When the crops are 
being sown, the Kharwars release a fowl as a scapegoat and 
pray, saying, “O Mother Earth! keep in prosperity and 
protect the ploughmen and the oxen ”.’ 
The Parahiyas, a Dravidian tribe fi Mirzapur, propitiate 
Mother Earth (Dhart? Mata) by pouring a little milk or 
liquor on the ground.” Some Pankas, in eating, throw a 
little bread and water on the ground as an offering to 
Mother Earth (Dharti Mata)’ Similarly the Dusadhs, a 
menial caste, put a little food on the ground in honour of 
the same goddess before they begin their meals.* The 
Koiris, a caste whose ethnical affinities are doubtful, are 
found both in the North-Western Provinces and in Bengal. 
At marriage they pour curds, mixed with pepper, sugar, 
and water, on the ground as an offering to Mother Earth 
(Dhartt Mata). The Bhuiyas and the Kharwars, both 
Dravidian tribes of South Mirzapur, worship Mother Earth 
(Dhartt Mata) in association with the collective village 
gods (ih); the victim offered to her by the Kharwars on 
this occasion is a goat, which is sacrificed by the village 
priest (daiga).® 
Chief In general, the chief periodical festivals of the Dravidians 
Wegner are celebrated for the purpose of stimulating the fertility of 
Dravidians Mother Earth; hence they fall at the critical seasons of the 
ney farmer’s year, to wit, At sowing and transplanting the rice, 
the fertility at reaping the harvest and at garnering it in the barn. At 
Crank" these festivals the youths and maidens dance and pat the 
ground with their hands in order to rouse the Earth-goddess 
to activity.” 
Human Far less innocent were the means which another 
sacrifices Dravidian tribe adopted to attain the same end. The cruel 


offered to 
the’Earthe human _ sacrifices, which down to the middle of the nine- 


dd aa ; ° 
ae elt 1 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 5 W. Crooke, 7ribes and Castes of 
of Orissa, “0¢k-lore of Northern India, i. 32. the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 


* W. Crooke, Zribes and Castes of iii. 290... As to the ethnical affinities 
the North-Western Provincesand Oudh of the Koiris, see za@., pp. 287 sg.; 


(Calcutta, 1896), iv. 130. (Sir) H. H. Risley, 7rzbes and Castes 
/ 8 W. Crooke, 7ribes and Castes of of Bengal (Calcutta, 1892), i. 500 sg. 
the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 8 W. Crooke, 7rébes and Castes of - 
iv. 118. the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 
4,.W. Crooke; Tribes and Castes of ii. 80, iii. 247. 
the North- Western Provinces and Oudh, TW. Crooke, Natives of Northern 


Lie 2 Bite India, p. 232. 


1x WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 385 


teenth century the Khonds of Orissa offered to the Earth- 
goddess in order to ensure the fertility of their fields, have 
earned for them an unenviable notoriety among all the 
Dravidian tribes of India. The Khonds inhabit the hills The 
of Orissa, a province of Southern Bengal, but they extend eR 
southwards into the Madras Presidency and westward into country. 
what used to be part of the Central Provinces.’ The general 
character of the country is wild and mountainous ; it consists 

of a jumble of ranges covered with dense forests of sa/ trees 
(Shorea robusta). About two-thirds of it is believed to be 
occupied by jungle. The Khonds live, in scattered villages 
built in clearings of the jungle, each surrounded by its 
patch of tilled land won from the virgin forest. They are a 
shy and timid folk and eschew contact with the inhabitants 

of the lowlands. They love their wild mountain gorges and 
the stillness of life in the jungle; on the least alarm they fly 

to the most impenetrable recesses of the forest or the hills. 
They live by hunting and agriculture. Like many other 
savage tribes, they clear patches of land in the forest during 
the cold season, and set fire to the fallen timber in the hot 
weather. After the second year of cultivation the land thus 
reclaimed is abandoned, and a fresh clearing is made. By 
this primitive form of husbandry the people raise barely 
enough food to support them for half the year; they supply 
their wants for the remainder by bartering turmeric, of 
which they cultivate large quantities. Like their kinsfolk, 
the Santals, the Mundas, and the Hos, they regard them- 
selves, not without reason, as the true owners of the land, 
and they insist on their rights with a curious pertinacity.” 

The Khond pantheon is ‘said to number no less than The 
eighty-four gods, of whom Dharni Deota, the Earth-god, is ate 
the chief. Deota is an Aryan word: the proper Khond Khonds 
name for a god is Pennu. The Earth-deity is now a male, i 
but formerly she was a female, named Tari Pennu or Bera Deota 
Pennu. We are told, and may readily believe, that there is tae | 
nothing surprising in a god changing his or her sex for the (female). 
opposite. A parallel case is the Earth-deity of Chhattisgarh, 


1 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Zrzbes and Tribes and Castes of the Central Prov- 
Castes of Bengal, i. 397; E. Thurston, zces of /ndia (London, 1916), iii. 464. 
Castes and Tribes of Southern India 2 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Zribes and 
(Madras, 1909), iii. 357; R. V. Russell, Castes of Bengal, i. 397. 


-VOL. I . “Le 


Animals 
now 
sacrificed 
in room of 
human 
victims, 


Motives 


for offering Pennu 2 


human 


sacrifices to munity from all diseases and accidents. 


the Earth- 
goddess. 


386 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


who, like the Earth-deity of the Khonds, used to receive 
human sacrifices; he is either a god named Thakur Deo, 
or a goddess named Thakurani Mai. The Earth-god 
of the Khonds is usually accompanied by Bhatbarsi Deo, 
the god of hunting. The Earth-god Dharni Deota is 
represented by a rectangular peg of wood driven into the 
ground, while the Hunting-god Bhatbarsi has a place at his 
feet in the shape of a piece of conglomerate stone covered 
with circular granules. Once in four or five years a buffalo 
is offered to the Earth-god in room of the human victim 
who used to be sacrificed to the grim deity. The animal is 
predestined for sacrifice from its birth, and is allowed to 
wander and graze on the crops at will. The stone repre- 
senting Bhatbarsi is examined from time to time, and when 
the granules on it appear to have increased, it is known 
that the season for the sacrifice has come. In Kalahandi 
a lamb is sacrificed every year, and strips of its flesh are 
distributed to all the villagers, who bury them in their fields 
as divine agents of fertilization, just as they used to bury 
pieces of the flesh of the human victims for the same 
purpose.’ 

These human sacrifices offered to the Earth-goddess Tari 
were formerly believed to ensure good crops and im- 
; In particular they 
were deemed essential in the cultivation of turmeric, the 
Khonds arguing that the turmeric could not have a deep red 
colour without the shedding of blood. The sacrifice was 


1 R. V. Russell, 77ibes and Castes of 
the Central Provinces of India, ili. 473. 

2 The chief authorities on these 
sacrifices are the reports of the two 
officers, Major-General John Campbell 
and Major S. C. Macpherson, who 
were engaged in suppressing the custom, 
See Major-General John Campbell, 
Personal Narrative of Thirteen Years’ 
Service amongst the Wild Tribes of 
Khondistan (London, 1864), pp. 52- 
58, etc.; Major S. C. Macpherson, 
Memorials of Service in India (London, 
1865), pp. 113-131. Compare Mgr. 
Neyret, Bishop of Vizagapatam, in 
Annales de la Propagation de la Fot, 
xxiii, (1851) pp. 402-404; E. T, 
Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of 


Bengal, pp. 285-288; (Sir) H. H. 
Risley, Zrzbes and Castes’ of Bengal, 
i. 403 sgg.; E. Thurston, B¢hnographic 
Notes on Southern India (Madras, 
1906), pp. 510-519; 7@., Castes and 
Tribes of Southern India (Madras, 
1909), iii. 371-385; RAR. V. Russell, 
Tribes and. Castes of the Central Pro- 
vinces of India, iii. 473 5¢g. I have 
described the sacrifices in 7he Golden 
Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn 
and of the Wild, i, 245 sgg. My 
description has been reprinted by Sir 
H. H. Risley, of. czt. i. 404 sg¢., 
and by Mr. R. V. Russell, of. cé¢. iii. 
474 579: 

8 Major-General J, Campbell, of. 
ctt. p. 56. 


IX WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 387 


performed as a public oblation by tribes, branches of tribes, 
or villages, both at periodical festivals and whenever special 
occasions appeared to demand extraordinary propitiations. 
And besides these social or communal offerings, the rite was 
observed by individuals to avert the wrath of the goddess 
Tari from themselves and their families.’ For example, if 
a child were carried off by a tiger, the parents would fly to 
the priest, bring him to their house, dash vessels of water 
over him, seat him in his wet garments, and set a cup of 
water before him. Into this cup of water the priest dipped 
his fingers thrice, smelled them, sneezed, and being filled 
with the deity spoke wildly in her name. If he declared 
that Tari had inflicted the blow as a punishment for the 
neglect of her worship, the father would vow to expiate his 
sin by sacrificing a human victim within the year.’ 

The periodical sacrifices offered by communities were Distribu- 
generally so arranged that each head of a family was able ani 
to procure a shred of human flesh for his fields at least once flesh. 

a year, usually about the time when he laid down his 
principal crop.2 The victims were commonly known as Thevictims 
Meriahs; but in the Khond language the name for them ene 
was Zokkt or Keddz. Persons of any race or age and of how they 
either sex were acceptable victims, with the exception of prcurea 
Brahmans, who, having been invested with the sacred thread, and kept. 
were perhaps considered already dedicated to the gods.* 

Grown men were the most esteemed because they were the 

most costly. Children were purchased, and brought up for 

years with the family of the person who ultimately devoted 

them to a cruel death whenever circumstances were supposed 

to require a sacrifice at his hands. They seem to have been 

treated with kindness, and in youth were kept under no 
restraint, but when they were old enough to be sensible of 

the fate that awaited them, they were placed in fetters and 
guarded. The victim must always be purchased. Criminals, 

or prisoners captured in war, were not deemed fit to be 
sacrificed. Most of the victims rescued by British officers 

1 Major S. C. Macpherson, Afemo- pp. 114. 
ile Serie, tnt, BAS 8 Major S.C. Macpherson, of. 


x aig Bc 
Southern India, ii. 372 sg. : 3 
2 Major S. C. Macpherson, of. c7¢. 4S. C. Macpherson, of. c7t. p. 114. 


Sacred 


character of 


the victims. 


388 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA  cCHap. 


had been sold by their parents or nearest relations, a practice 
which seems to have been very common.’ To prevent the 
grown victims from running away, the purchaser sometimes 
promised not to sacrifice them, and sometimes’ he kept his 
word, gave the young man a wife, and indemnified him- 
self for sparing the father by sacrificing the children of the 
marriage. At the same time, despite his promise, he reserved 
to himself the right of sacrificing the father also, if he thought 
fit to do so; and any pretext was good enough to justify 
the butchery, it might.be a public calamity, a serious illness, 
a family festival, a marriage, or what not.” Further, as the 
wife of a Meriah was herself usually a victim, it was in the 
power and within the right of the owner to immolate the 
whole family, father, mother, and children, and the right was 
sometimes exercised without hesitation. Should a destined 
victim have intercourse with the wife or daughter of a Khond, 
the husband or father of the woman, far from resenting the 
deed as a blot on his scutcheon, returned thanks to the 
goddess for the honour she had done him. For so long as 
he lived, the victim was regarded as a consecrated being, 
and, if he was left at large, he was eagerly welcomed at every 
threshold.* Hence parents were not ashamed to sell their 
children for victims, believing that the beatification of their 
souls was certain, and that their death for the benefit of 
mankind was the most honourable that could fall. to the lot 
of a mortal. Once, when a father had sold his daughter for 
a victim, her lover loaded him with curses and spat in his 
face. But a party of Khonds who witnessed the affair con- 
soled the insulted father, saying, “ Your child has died that 
all the world may live, and the Earth-goddess herself will 
wipe that spittle from your face”.* But persons of riper 
years were kidnapped and sold by wretches who traded in 
human flesh. 


1 E, Thurston, Castes and Tribes 
of Southern India, iii. 373, quoting 
Russell, Selections from Records, Govern- 
ment of India, No. V. Human Sacrifice 
and Infanticide, 1854. 

2 Mgr. Neyret, in Annales de la 
Propagation de la Fot, xxiii. (1851) 
p. 403. The evidence here quoted 
by Monsignor Neyret is that of a 


missionary who visited the Khonds 
and recorded what he had learned from 
the lips of destined victims. 

3S. C. Macpherson, of. cz¢. p. 116, 

4S. C. Macpherson, of. c7¢. pp. 
115 5g. 

6 J. Campbell, of. czt. pp. 50, 52 
sqgq.; E. Thurston, 7rzbes and Castes 
of Southern India, iii. 373. 


IX WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 389 


The priest (gzazee) who officiated at the sacrifice might 
be of any caste, but he performed the preliminary ceremony 
of offering flowers and incense through the medium of a 
Khond child under seven years of age. This child, who 
bore the title of Toomba, was fed and clothed at the public 
expense, ate with no other person, and was subjected to no 
act deemed impure.’ 

The mode of consummating the sacrifice varied in 
different places. The earliest report of it, dating from 
1837, describes the custom as it was observed in the hill 
tracts of Goomsur, in the Madras Presidency. There the 
sacrifice was annually offered to the Earth, represented by 
the effigy of a peacock, in order to induce the deity to grant 
favourable seasons and good crops. It was preceded by 
a month of revelry. The people feasted, drank themselves 
drunk, and+danced round the destined victim, who was 
decked with garlands. On the day before the rite he was 
_stupefied with toddy and made to sit, or, if necessary, was 
bound to the foot of a post which bore the effigy of a 
peacock. The assembled multitude then danced round the 
post to music, and addressing the earth they said, “O God! 
we offer the sacrifice to you. Give us good crops, seasons, 
and health.’ After that they addressed the victim, saying, 
“We bought you with a price and did not seize you. Now 
we sacrifice you according to custom, and no sin rests with 
us.” Next day, the victim having been again intoxicated 
and anointed with oil, every person present touched the 
anointed part of the victim’s body, and wiped off the oil on 
his own head. All then marched in procession round the 
village and its boundaries, preceded by music and bearing 
the victim and a pole, to the top of which was tied a bunch 
of peacock’s feathers. The sacrificial post was always placed 
near the shrine of a village deity called Zakaree Pennoo, 
who was represented by three stones, near which the brass 
effigy of a peacock was buried. When the procession with 
the victim: reached the fatal post, a hog was killed in sacri+ 
fice, and its blood allowed to flow into a pit prepared for the 
purpose. The victim, still dead drunk if possible, was then 
seized and thrown into the pit, and his face was pressed down 

1 FE, Thurston, 4c. 


The priest 
and his 
assistant. 


The modes 
of consum- 
mating the 
sacrifice. 


390 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN [NDIA CHAP. 


into the bloody mire till he died of suffocation, while all the 


The flesh of while the music crashed. Then the priest cut a piece of | 


the vtctim 
buried. 


Other 
modes of 
performing 
the 
sacrifice. 


flesh from the body, and buried it with ceremony near the 
effigy and the village idol as an offering to the Earth. 
Afterwards all the rest of the people similarly cut pieces from 
the body and carried the bleeding flesh to their respective 
villages, where part of it was buried in like manner near the 
village idol and little bits were interred on the boundaries. 
The head and face of the victim were not touched by the 
knives, and when the bones had been stripped bare of flesh, 
they were buried with the face and head in the bloody pit. 
When the ceremony was over, a buffalo calf was brought in 
front of the post, its forefeet were cut off, and the animal 
was left to welter in its blood till the following day. Then 
women, dressed and armed as men, drank, danced, and sang 
round the spot. The calf was killed and eaten, and the 
priest. was dismissed with a present of rice and a hog or calf.’ 
Elsewhere the mode of putting the victim to death was 
different, and often far less merciful. In some districts 
the acceptable place of sacrifice was discovered the previous 
night by persons who went about the village probing the 
ground with sticks in the dark, and the first deep chink 
which they lit upon was the spot marked out by the Earth- 
goddess herself for.the slaughter. There, in the morning, a 
short post was inserted; around it four larger posts were 
usually set up, and in the midst of these the victim was 
placed. The priest, assisted by the chief and one or two of 
the village elders, then took the branch of a green tree cleft 
several feet down the middle. In the rift they inserted 
sometimes the chest and sometimes the throat of the victim, 
and with the help of cords twisted round the open extremity 
of the stake strove with all their strength to close it. Then 
the priest wounded the victim with his axe, whereupon 
the crowd threw themselves upon the wretch and stripped 
the flesh from his bones, leaving untouched the head and 
intestines.” According to another account the victim was 
1 E, Thurston, Castes and Tribes of | The original Report appears to date 
Southern India, iil. 372-376, quoting from 1837. 
Russell’s Report, Selectzons from the 


Records, Government of India, No. V. 2 S. C. Macpherson, of. cit. pp. 
Human Sacrifice and Infanticide, 1854. 127 sq. 


IX WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 391 


squeezed to death between two strong planks.’ Sometimes 
_ he was cut up alive. This was the account given by the 
destined victims themselves to a Catholic missionary who 
visited the Khond hills while the custom was still in full 
vogue. They said that after the victim had been tied up, 
generally in a state of intoxication, the crowd danced round 
him, and then, at a given signal, rushed at him and cut off 
pieces of his living body ; the flesh had to be quivering, warm, 
and bleeding; and as each man took his slice, he hurried 
away with it to the field which he wished to fertilize.” 

Chinna Kimedy is a principality a little to the south Thewaysof 
and west of Goomsur. The plains are fertile, but the pedaints 
mountains are to a great extent covered with forest and in Chinna 
: rn ° . ie Kimedy, 
jungle. In the lower hills water is comparatively scarce 
and the valleys present a poor and barren appearance. The 
distant prospect is that of range after range of mountains 
thickly mantled with forests of bamboo and the damur 
tree. These highlands are the home of the Khonds, 
who in the old days used to raid the peaceful inhabitants 
of the rich lowlands and then retreat with their booty 
into the inaccessible fastnesses of the jungle. Throughout 
the mountains human sacrifices were offered not to the 
Earth alone, as in Goomsur, but to a number of other 
deities whose favour was deemed essential to the life and 
happiness of the people.’ Major-General Campbell, who 
took active measures for suppressing the barbarous custom, 
has described some of the ways in which these atrocities 
were perpetrated in the name of religion. He says: 
“One of the most common ways of offering the sacrifice 
in Chinna Kimedy, is to an effigy of an elephant, rudely 
carved in wood, fixed on a stout post, on which it is 
made to revolve. After the performance of the usual cere- 
monies, the intended victim is fastened to the proboscis of 
the elephant, and amidst the shouts and yells of the excited 
multitude of Khonds, is rapidly whirled round, when, at 
a given signal by the officiating Zani or priest, the crowd 
rush in, seize the Meriah, and with their knives cut the flesh 


1 J. Campbell, of. czt. pp. 57 sy. pp. 403 sg. Compare J, Campbell, 
: op. cit. pp. 56, 58, 120 sg. 
2 Mgr. Neyret, in Annales de la $ J, Campbell, of, cz#. pp. 119, 


Propagation de la Fot, xxiii, (1851) 120, 125. 


392 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


off the shrieking wretch as long as life remains. He is then 


The victims 
burned 
alive. 


Ritual 
observed 
over the 
mangled 
remains of 
the victims. 


cut down, the skeleton burnt, and the horrid orgies are | 
over.”' In another report the same officer describes how 
“the miserable victim is dragged along the fields, surrounded 
by a crowd of half-intoxicated Khonds, who, shouting and 
screaming, rush upon him, and with their knives cut the flesh 
piecemeal from the bones, avoiding the head and bowels, 
till the living skeleton, dying from loss of blood, is relieved 
from torture, when its remains are burnt, and the ashes 
mixed with the new grain to preserve it from insects”. 

Even this was not the worst that a fiendish ingenuity, 
masked under the guise of religion, could do to augment the 
sufferings of a fellow-creature. We are informed that “in 
one tract the victim is put to death slowly by fire. A low 
stage 1s formed, sloping on either side like a roof; upon it 
the victim is placed, his limbs wound round with cords, so 
as to confine but not prevent his struggles. Fires are lighted, 
and hot brands applied, so as to make the victim roll. alter- 
nately up and down the slopes of the stage. He is thus 
tortured as long as he is capable of moving or uttering cries ; 
it being believed that the favour of the Earth-goddess, 
especially in respect of the supply of rain, will be in propor- 
tion to the quantity of tears which may be extracted. The 
victim is next day cut to pieces.” ? 

We have seen that when the human victim was cut up 
at the stake or other place of execution, care was taken 
to avoid injuring certain portions, particularly the head and 
bowels. These mangled remains were regarded as. sacred 
and became the objects of a ritual observance, which is thus 
described by Major Macpherson, one of the British officers 
engaged in the suppression of the sacrifices. He says: 

“The most careful precautions are taken lest the offering 
should suffer desecration by the touch or even ‘the near 
approach of any persons save the worshippers of the Earth- 
goddess, or by that of any animal. During the night after 
the sacrifice, strong parties watch over the remains of the . 
victim ; and next day the priest and the Mullickos [the chiefs 


1 J. Campbell, of. zz. p.. 126. Tribes of Southern India, tii. 376. 
2 Colonel (Major-General) Campbell, 3 Major S. C. Macpherson, AZemzo- 
quoted by E. Thurston, Castes and rials of Service in India, p. 130. 


Ix WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 393 


of the villages] consume them, together with a whole sheep, 
on a funeral pile, when the ashes are scattered over the fields, 
or are laid as paste over the houses and granarics. And 
then two formalities are observed which are held indispensable 
to the virtue of the sacrifice. The first is that of presenting 
to the father of the victim, or to the person who sold or 
made him over to the Khonds for sacrifice, or the repre- 
sentative of such person, a bullock, called the d/u/y, in final 
satisfaction of all demands. The second formality is the 
sacrifice of a bullock for a feast, at which the following 
prayer is offered up. 

“After invoking all the gods, the priest says: ‘O Tari Prayer to 
Pennu! you have afflicted us greatly; have brought death ee 
to our children and our bullocks, and failure to our corn ; TariPennu. 
have afflicted us in every way. But we do not complain of 
this. It is your desire only to compel us to perform your 
due rites, and then to raise up and enrich us. We were 
anciently enriched by this rite; all around us are great from 
it; therefore, by our cattle, our flocks, our pigs, and our 
grain, we procured a victim and offered a sacrifice. Do you 
now enrich us. Let our herds be so numerous that they 
cannot be housed ; let children so abound that the care of 
them shall overcome their parents, as shall be seen by their 
burned hands; let our heads ever strike against brass pots 
innumerable hanging from our roofs; let the rats form their 
nests of shreds of scarlet cloth and silk; let all the kites in 
the country be seen in the trees of our village, from beasts 
being killed there every day. We are ignorant of what it is 
good to ask for. You know what is good for us. Give it 
LOmasis : 

As the main object of the sacritice to the Earth-goddess The — 
was to ensure the fertility of the ground which fell within,” 
her province, and as the principal agent of fertilization was carried 
the flesh of the human victim, every expedient was adopted Te ee 
in order to apply it as speedily as possible to the fields fertilize 
which were to be fecundated by its influence. We have 
seen that for this purpose the flesh ought to be quivering, 
warm, and bleeding.” Further, when a sacrifice took place, 


' Major S. C. Macpherson, Alemorials of Service in India, pp. 128 sg. 
2 Above, p. 391. 


A section 
of the 
Khonds 
abhorred 
human 
sacrifices. 


394 WORSHIP OF EARTH IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


deputies from all Earth-worshipping Khonds attended it, and 
no sooner had the victim been hacked to pieces than these 
deputies returned home in hot haste, each with his portion 
of dripping flesh. Sometimes, in order to ensure its rapid 
arrival, it was forwarded by relays of runners and conveyed 
with postal fleetness for distances of fifty or sixty miles.’ 
Meantime in the village the priest and all who remained at 
home fasted rigidly till the arrival of the flesh. The bearer 
brought it rolled up in leaves of the googlut tree, and de- 
posited it on a cushion of grass in the place of public 
assembly. There it was received by the priest and the 
heads of families. The priest divided it into two portions, 
one of which he offered to the Earth-goddess by burying it 
in a hole in the ground with his back turned, and without 
looking ; but first he tendered an apology to the goddess for 
the smallness of the offering, explaining that the victim had 
been sacrificed by another village, and that they could not 
give her more. Then each man added a little earth to bury 
the offering, and the priest poured water from a hill: gourd. 
The other portion of flesh the priest divided into as many 
shares as there were heads of families present. Each head 
of a house then rolled his shred of flesh in leaves, and after 
a mock battle with stones and mud, in which many heads 
were broken, he finally buried it in his favourite field, 
depositing it in the earth behind his back without looking.” 
In some places every man carried his portion of flesh to 
a stream which watered his fields, and there hung it on 
a pole.’ } 

It is only just to the Khonds to mention that a certain 
section of them, who worshipped Boora Pennu, the God of 
Light, abhorred the human sacrifices offered by their kins- 
folk to Tari Pennu, the Earth-goddess. They looked with 
horror on the country that was sullied by the blood of 
these sacrifices; and when they visited it between. the 
seasons of sowing and reaping, they might not use its 
polluted fire, but had to obtain pure fire by the friction 
of wood ; nor might they drink the water of its pools and 


1 E. B. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 2 Major S. C. Macpherson, of. cé¢. 
logy of Bengal, p. 288; Major S.C. _ p, 120. 
Macpherson, of. c7¢, p. 129. 3 J. Campbell, of. ct. p. 182. 


IX WORSHIP OF EARTH AMONG THE DRAVIDIANS 395 


fountains until they had first fixed their arrows in them to 
symbolize their conquest of the defiled water. Similarly 
they might not sleep in a house until they had snatched 
and burned a few straws from its thatched roof to symbolize 
the conquest of the contaminated house by fire. They 
believed that death was often the penalty for neglect of these 
precautions. | 

After the suppression of human sacrifices, inferior victims Animals 
were substituted in some places; for instance, in the capital rsNutcs 
of Chinna Kimedy a goat took the place of a human victim.” victims in 
Elsewhere a buffalo does duty for a man. They tie the tai 
animal to a wooden post in a sacred grove, dance fast and 
furiously round it with brandished knives, then, falling on 
the live beast, soon hack it to shreds, leaving nothing but 
the head, bones, and stomach. In a few minutes every 
particle of flesh and skin has been stripped from the buffalo, 
while the men fight over it and struggle for every morsel of 
the carcase. As soon as a man has secured a piece of the 
flesh, he makes off with it at full speed to bury it in his 
fields, according to ancient custom, before the sun has set, 
and as some of them have far to go, they must run very 
fast. The crowd of women, who have witnessed the 
slaughter but taken no part in it, throw clods of earth 
at the rapidly retreating figures of the men, some of them 
taking very good aim. Soon the sacred grove, so late 
a scene of tumult and hubbub, is silent and deserted, except 
for a few people who remain to guard all that is left of the 
buffalo, to wit, the head, the bones, and the stomach, which 
are burned with ceremony at the foot of the stake.° 


2 


1 Major S. C. Macpherson, A/emo- 3 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of 
rials of Service in India, p. 131. Southern India, iii. 381-385, quoting 
2 J. Campbell, of. czt. p. 187. the J/adras Mail, 1894. 


GHAR TE Re 
THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 


The IN dealing with the worship of the sky in Western Africa we 
pans of saw that in certain tribes of that region the divinity of the 
eclipsed by Sky is to some extent overshadowed and eclipsed by that of 
mewosh'P the Earth, who ranks as a still higher deity.1 This holds 


insome good in particular of a group of tribes in Upper Senegal 
wipes of or the French Sudan, within the great bend of the Niger. 
Africa. Among them the Bobos inhabit the plain in the Mossi- 
Gurunsi country, to the east of the Black Volta river. 

They subsist mainly, by agriculture, cultivating especially 
TheBobos: various sorts of millet.2 As a rule, they till a patch of land 
Sere for five years, then abandon it, and obtain fresh ground for 
Earth tillage either by cutting down the virgin forest or by clearing 
Sree away the trees and shrubs that have grown up on old 
religious fallows.°> In every Bobo village there is generally, in 
Mee ay addition to the village chief, a religious chief who bears 
esc the title of Chief of the Earth and is charged with the duty 
of offering sacrifices! to the Earth and to the other local 
deities. He has no political authority and in that respect is 

subject to the village chief; but he is the necessary mediator 
between the people and the gods, and when he dies he is 
succeeded in his office by his son.* Like the other tribes of 

this region, the Bobos regard the Earth as a great ,and 
formidable deity who avenges breaches of the moral law. 

Dislike of In particular he or rather she (for the sex of the deity appears 


the Earth- to be feminine) dislikés to see human blood flowing and is 
goddess to 


see blood : : : 
flowing, 1 See above, pp. 90 sgq. 3-L. Tauxier, Ze Notr du Soudan, 
, Pp. 42. 
2 L. Tauxier, Ze Notr du Soudan 4 L. Tauxier, Ze Notr du Soudan, 
(Paris, 1912), p. 30. p. 61. 


396 


CHAD. x THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 397 


offended when it is spilt. Hence when a murder has taken 
place or a simple wound involving bloodshed has been 
inflicted, it becomes necessary to appease the angry deity by 
sacrifice, which is offered either by the Chief of the Earth or, 
where there is no such priestly authority, by the chief of the 
village. The culprit furnishes the victim or victims, it may 
be a goat, a sheep, a dog, or fowls, or several of these different 
sorts of creatures. After being offered to the Earth the 
flesh of the victims is consumed by the chief and the village 
elders. The wounded person or the family of the murdered 
man gets nothing, because the intention of the rite is not to 
compensate the wronged at the expense of the wrong-doer, 
but to pacify the anger of the Earth at the sight of blood- 
shed. But if an assault has not involved the shedding of 
blood, nothing is done, no atonement is needed.’ In other 
tribes of this region the victims sacrificed to the Earth 
to pacify her wrath at bloodshed are usually oxen, one or 
more in number.” The place of sacrifice may be either 
the sacred grove or the holy place in the middle of the 
village.’ | 
But sacrifices are offered by the Bobos to the Earth on The 

many other occasions. The people live in large communal 7" 


houses 
houses, massively constructed of beaten earth so as to present (svéa/a) 


the appearance externally of fortresses. Each such com- ve 
munal house, called a swzsa/a, is inhabited by the members 
of a single family in the larger sense of the word, including 
married sons, married brothers, the sons of married brothers, 
and so forth. The daughters at marriage quit the parental 
dwelling, but are replaced in it by the wives of the married 
sons. The head of the family presides as chief over the 
communal house. When the house becomes too small to 
lodge the growing family, it is enlarged; or, if that is not 
possible on account of the proximity of other houses, the 
younger brother of the head of the family goes away, taking: 
some of the overflowing household with him, and settles in 
a new communal house elsewhere. Each of these family 
dwellings or fortresses usually stands by itself, at an interval 
1 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, pp. 101, 176, 177, 178, 227 sg., 290, 


pp. 64 59-, 73. : 313-315, 352. 
3-L. Tauxier, Ze Noir du Soudan, 
2 L. Tauxier, Le Motr du Soudan,  p. 239. 


Sacrifices 
at sowing 
and harvest 
to the 
ancestral 
spirits and 
to a tree 
which re- 
presents the 
Earth and 
the Forest. 


398 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP. 


of one or tavo hundred yards from its next neighbour, and 
the ground about each is planted with maize, hemp, and 
other plants with long stalks, so that in the rainy season 
every house is surrounded by a compact -mass of lofty 
verdure, above which its massive walls rise like cliffs from 
a green:sea. At that time of the year all the members 
of the household, whether married or not, work together 
on the family fields from early morning till late afternoon, 
with an interval of about three hours for rest and refresh- 
ment in the heat of the day.’ 

At the time of sowing the head of the family offers a 
sacrifice to the ancestral spirits in order that they may make 
the seed to sprout. The sacrifice is performed either at the 
door of the communal dwelling (swkala) or on the grave of 
the last head of the family. But in addition he offers a 
sacrifice to a great tree in the field. This tree represents 
both the Earth and the Forest; for in the mind of the 
black man these two great and mighty deities are practically 
fused into one, and the sacrifice offered to them in the 
form of the tree is intended to ensure their favour for 
the sowing. The victims presented to them and to the 
ancestral spirits on this occasion are fowls. At harvest some 
Bobos always sacrifice a fowl and millet flour to the ancestral 
spirits and the great tree as a thank-offering to the spirits 
and to the Earth for their bounty. Others, more cautious 
or economical, consult a diviner as to whether it is necessary 
to testify their gratitude to the higher powers in this fashion. 
If the sage says yes, they sacrifice the animal which he pre- 
scribes, it may be a sheep, a goat, or a fowl, to the ancestral 
spirits to thank them for having caused the crop to grow ; 
for dwelling underground they can make the seed to 
sprout, and without their goodwill the earth would remain 
barren. The sacrifice is appropriately offered on the grave 
of the last head of the family dwelling (sukala). Thus we 
see the close relation which subsists between the divinity of 
the ancestors and the divinity of the Earth.? If there is a 
Chief of the Earth in the village, it is he who offers the 
sacrifice of thanksgiving after harvest; if not, the duty 


1 L, Tauxier, Ze Noir du Soudan, 2 L. Tauxier, Ze Moir du Soudan, 
pp. 41, 60. pp. 70 sg, 


x THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 399 


devolves on the chief of the village. The season of the 
harvest is November or December.’ 

At the same time the Bobos sacrifice to the Forest, Sacrifices 

because at this season they burn the grass and kindle fires ee 
in the forest as a preparation for hunting, in order that when fires 
the hunters may not be stung by serpents, devoured by par cea 
leopards or lions, or incur other mishaps. The sacrifice, 
consisting of a fowl or a goat, is offered by the Chief of the 
Earth or the Chief of the Forest near the village or some- 
times on a rising ground. But it is to be borne in mind 
that the blacks do not clearly distinguish between the 
Earth and the Forest. They say that the trees are the 
children of the Earth, and that when they sacrifice to a tree 
or a sacred grove they sacrifice at the same time to the 
Earth, their Mother. Thus the Forest, embracing all the 
vegetation that grows on the bosom of the Earth, is a 
daughter of Earth and as such is confused with her Mother. 
Hence, too, the members of Secret Societies in these tribes 
claim to be under the special protection of the Earth and 
carry leaves and branches in support of their claim.” This 
ascription of maternity to Earth appears to designate that 
deity as female, as a divine Mother rather than a divine 
Father. 

The worship of the Earth as the great deity, or rather the Worship of 
greatest of the deities, prevails in similar forms among all eee 
the pagan tribes of the Mossi-Gurunsi country. All have thetribes of _ 
their Chiefs of the Earth, who preside over the worship, and ((¢ Mos" 
all offer sacrifices to the Earth on various occasions, such as country. 
at sowing and harvest, when human blood has been shed, 
and when rain is wanted, and indeed whenever the diviner 
declares that the Earth demands this mark of homage. All 
look upon the Earth as a just divinity, who does good to 
the virtuous and punishes the wicked. She is the abode of 
the dead, and it may be that from them she derives her 
power of being kind to the righteous and a terror to 
evil-doers.” 

The profound confidence which these tribes repose in Oaths by 


, ; ; : th th. 
1 |. Tauxier, Ze Moir du Soudan, 3 LL. Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, eee 


pew: POmLOl et OagelOS,0 100, 0170). 170, 
2 L. Tauxier, Le Nor du Soudan, 177, 190, and especially 194. 
PP. 73 59: 


400 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP. 


the Earth as a power which makes for righteousness is 
clearly manifested in the solemn oath which an accused man 
will swear by the Earth in order to attest his innocence. 
Thus when a man is charged with being a sorcerer and 
with having caused the death of somebody by “eating his 
soul,” he is made to drink water in which is mixed a 
handful of earth taken from the. place of sacrifice. Before 
he drinks he protests his innocence and calls upon the 
Earth to kill him if he lies. Should he be guilty, it is 
thought that the Earth will take him at his word and slay 
him on the spot; whereas if he is innocent, she will not 
harm a hair of his head.’ Sometimes the accuser as well 
as the accused was obliged to drain the cup, and it was left 
to the Earth to decide between them by killing one or the 
other. One of the two always succumbed, or at least ought 


to do so; and if both perished, it was accepted as proof 


Sacrifices 
to the 
Earth at 
clearing 
land for 
cultivation. 


conclusive that both were sorcerers.” One of the nefarious 
tricks practised by sorcerers in this region is to turn them- 
selves into hyenas and in that disguise to attack and kill 
anybody against whom they have a grudge. When that 
has happened, and the crime has been brought home to 
the criminal in the usual way, by the corpse bumping up 
against him when it is carried by two bearers, the accused 
has to swear his innocence by the Earth, and if he forswears _ 
himself, it is believed that the Earth will kill him within two 
days. But if he refuses to swear and prefers to confess that 
he really did turn into a hyena and as such despatched 
his victim, they put on his breast some earth, which is 
supposed to kill him the very next time he turns into a 
hyena. One way in which the Earth slays a perjurer is 
by causing his belly to swell after he has drunk the water 
in which a little of the sacred soil has been dropped.* 

One of the occasions of sacrificing to the Earth is 
naturally at clearing land for cultivation. A man who is 
about to clear some ground in the forest goes to the Chief of _ 
the Earth or the chief of the village, and together they repair 
to the spot where the field is to be laid out. There they 


1 |, Tauxier, Ze NMotr du Soudan, i bs Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, 


Pp. 194 sg., 229, 289. p. 353. 
2 L. Tauxier, Le NMotr du Soudan, 4-L. Tauxier, Le NMotr du Soudan, 


Pp. 375, 376. Pp. 375: 


x THEVWORSHIP OR. EARTH IN APRICA 401 


sacrifice a victim, it may be a fowl, a goat, or what not, to 
the Earth, and sometimes also to the Forest ; and having 
slaughtered the animal they cook and eat the flesh. After 
that the operation of cutting down the trees and bushes may 
proceed.’ 

Another motive for offering sacrifice to the Earth is to Sacrificing 
obtain rain in time of drought. For rain is very important foe Pa" 
for all these agricultural tribes, and if it does not fall in time of 

: , ; : : drought. 
sufficient quantity to ripen the crops during the rainy season, 
it is a public disaster. In such a case the village elders take 
a fowl to the Chief of the Earth, who sacrifices it to the 
Kearth in their presence that the rain may fall, and together 
they eat the flesh. If still no rain falls, they repeat the 
sacrifice.” Sometimes, to encourage the Earth to do her 
best for them, the Chief of the Earth, in sacrificing the fowl, 
promises to sacrifice a goat also as soon as rain falls. Some- 
times, cheered by the prospect, the goddess puts forth her 
power at once: the thunder rolls, the tornado bursts, and 
‘the rain pours down in torrents. At other times several days 
pass before the water of heaven descends, but it always falls 
sooner or later, which is not so miraculous as it might seem, 
because such sacrifices are only offered in the rainy season.° 
Among the Kassunas-Buras the Chief of the Earth sacrifices 
a dog, a sheep, a goat, or even an ox to the Earth for rain 
in the sacred grove or, if there is no sacred grove, at the place 
set apart for sacrifices to the Earth. Only the chief of the 
village and the elders may assist at the ceremony. Among 
the Sissalas, when rain has fallen in great abundance, the Thauk- 
Chief of the Earth thanks the goddess by seizing a fowl by Cheings 
the legs and dashing its head against the ground on the bare for rain. 
spot in the middle of the village which is dedicated to the 
worship of Earth.’ Among the Nunumas, when a heavy 
shower has fallen, the head of a house (suka/a) takes a fowl 
to his field. If there is a tamarind tree or another tree of a 
certain species in the field, he causes the blood of the fowl to 


1 LL. Tauxier, Le Notr du Soudan, 3 I. Tauxier, Le Moir du Soudan, 


pp. 163, 328, 347. pp. 241 sg. 
4 L. Tauxier, Le Moir du Soudan, 


2 L. Tauxier, Le Notr du Soudan,  p. 327. ; 
pp. 74 5g7.; compare zd, pp. 106, 6 L. Tauxier, Ze Noir du Soudan, 


196 sg. p. 358. 
VOL, I PAB 


Worship of 


the Earth 
among the 
Lassunas- 
Buras. 


Seat of the 
Farth- 
voddess on 
dunghills, 


The Earth- 
soddess 
and the 
l’orest- 
goddess. 


402 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP. 


flow on the tree, but. if there is no such tree he lets the blood 
pour on the ground. This is a sacrifice to the Earth and 
the Forest for a good crop.’ If the harvest answers his 
expectations, the husbandman makes a mess of millet 
porridge, seasoned with fish sauce, carries it to his field, and 
pours part of it on the ground, while he thanks the Forest 
for having given him a good crop.” 

Among the Kassunas-Buras the Chief of the [Earth 
sacrifices to the Earth for the whole village at the time of 
sowing, in order that the seeds may thrive. ‘The sacrifice 
consists of millet flour, moistened with water, which he offers 
at or near the door of his family house (suAa/a); and after 
harvest he sacrifices to the Earth for the whole village to 
thank the goddess for her bounty.’ But in this tribe the 
husbandman himself at. sowing sometimes sacrifices in his 
field to the Earth and the Forest. If there is a great tree in 
the field, he pours the blood of the victim or smears a paste 
of flour on it; but if there is no tree, he applies the sacrificial 
blood or flour to a rock or stone; and if there is no rock or 
stone, he pours out the whole on the ground. The tree, 
the rock, or the ground is supposed to convey the offering 
to the deity.* More usually, however, in this tribe, the head 
of a family at sowing offers the sacrificial paste to the 
ancestral spirits at their little huts made of beaten earth in 
the large communal dwelling (sukada).’ 

Among the Kassunas-Fras one of the favourite seats of 
the Earth deity, curiously enough, is on the great dunghills, 
sometimes twelve feet or more in height, one of which is 
usually to be seen at the door of the large communal house 
(sukala) of the village chief. In such cases the sacrifices 
to the [Earth-goddess are offered to her on the heap of 
ordure.® 

While the Earth-goddess, as we have seen, is at times 
confounded with her daughter the Forest - goddess, the 
two great deities are sometimes distinguished from each. 


17, Tauxier, Ze Noir du Soudan 4 L. Tauxier, Ze Notr du Soudan 
’ 3 > 

peut Bets Binet het 
} k : : ® L. Tauxier, Le Nozr du Soudan 
2 LL. Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, p. 322. For 7 a Hiei Be arth 

nT le : : : : + 
aad at sowing, see 7a. p. 587. 

3°L, Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, 6 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, 
Pp. 323. pp. 315, 328. 


x THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 403 


other. Thus the Nunumas look on the Forest as the 
second great divinity and as closely related to the Earth, 
who indeed is her mother. At bottom she is righteous like 
her parent, yet is she of a sterner temper, more terrible, more 
mischievous. In the gloomier cast of her character we may 
trace the horror of the dense thickets and matted jungle, the 
haunts of wild beasts.’ In some villages of the Kassunas- 
Fras there is a Chief of the Forest distinct from the Chief 
of the Earth, and at sowing he sacrifices one or two fowls 
to the Forest for the whole village in order that the .seed 
sown may prosper.” 

In most villages of the Kassunas-Buras and_ probably The office 
of most other pagan tribes of the Mossi-Gurunsi country, suneaaanas 
there is a Chief of the Earth as well as a chief of the village. its origin. 
When a native was asked why there was this division of 
authority, and why the chief of the village could not be also 
the Chief of the Earth, he answered that the duplication 
dated from a time when two brothers had divided the power 
between them, the elder electing to be Chief of the Earth 
and the younger to be chief of the village, and that their 
descendants had inherited their respective offices.’ In this 
explanation there may be an element of truth, if we sup- 
pose that the Chiefs of the Earth are representatives of 
the aboriginal race which was conquered and deprived of 
political predominance by a race of invaders and conquerors, 
the Mossis, who were content to leave in the hands of the 
ancient inhabitants those religious functions, and especially 
that worship of the Earth, which as newcomers they felt 
themselves incompetent to undertake.’ 

In Yatenga, a district of Upper Senegal or the French The _ 
Sudan, to the north of the Mossi-Gurunsi country, the aeaLr 
worship of the Earth is similar. There also the Earth im Yatenga. 
(Tenuga) is esteemed a powerful divinity, indeed the supreme 
divinity in conjunction with Wenda,the Sky. But she is The Earth- 
much more terrible than he. She is the great champion S{¢°s'"° 


great 


of morality and justice, the great avenger of wrong. She pepe ie 
° ° : ralit 
is angered by all the crimes and faults that men commit, erahinte: 


1 LL, Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan, 3 LL. Tauxier, Ze Mocr du Soudan, 
p. 195. Pp. 309 57. 
2 L. Tauxier, Ze Moir du Soudan, 4 LL, Tauxier, Ze Noir du Soudan, 


pp. 170, 240. Pp. 594-596. 


Oaths by 
Earth. 


Worship of 


the Forest 


Pa THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA cuap. 


for example, by the shedding of blood ; and if these crimes 
and faults are not redressed, she manifests her indignation 
by the various calamities which she has it in her power 
to inflict, as by withholding rain or sending famine, 
locusts, and disease. For example, if a girl is raped in 
the forest, it is necessary to sacrifice two goats and two 
fowls to the Earth-goddess, otherwise the rain will not fall 
and the millet harvest will fail; and the same thing holds 
good of other crimes. In particular, the Earth is the relent- 
less foe of perjurers. The way of swearing by her is as 
follows. The Chief of the Earth (Zengasoba) of the village 
collects spear-heads, arrow-heads, old knives, and so forth, 
and puts them all in a hole dug in the ground. There he 
kills a fowl, goat, sheep, or ox, while at the same time he 
invokes the formidable divinity. Over the hole, thus watered. 
with the blood of the victim, he compels the accused to 
swear his innocence and to call upon the Earth to kill him 
if he is not speaking the truth. If he is innocent, the Earth 
naturally spares him; but if he its guilty, she kills him 
within a given time. The Mossis and Foulses of Yatenga 
stand in great fear of the Earth-goddess (Zenga), and often 
prefer to make a clean breast of their misdeeds rather than 
forswear themselves in such conditions.’ 

In Yatenga the Forest is also worshipped. Before a 


in Yatenga, patch of ground is cleared for cultivation, a sacrifice is offered 


The Chief 


ofthe Earth 


to the Forest. The victim is generally a fowl, sometimes 
a goat, more seldom a sheep, and still more rarely an ox. 
At sowing also a sacrifice is offered. But indeed the Forest 
divinity is only one side of the Earth divinity ; on closer 
analysis the two appear to coincide.” ,. 

In every village of Yatenga the public worship is in the 


in Yatenga. hands of the Chief of the Earth (Zengasoba, from tenga, 


“earth,” and soba, “ chief”). He is always a Foulsé by race, 
not‘a Mossi. The political chiefs (cexganabas) of Yatenga 
never themselves offer sacrifices, though they may command 
the Chiefs of the Earth to do so.2 Towards the end of 
February the people hold a festival for the purpose of 


11. Tauxier, Le Moir du Yatenga  p. 377. 
(Paris, 1917), pp. 376 sq. 3 L. Tauxier, Le Moir du Vatenga, 
2 -L. Tauxier, Le Notr du Yatenga, p. 389. 


xX BAPE MVORSHIPAOL BARTH IN AFRICA. 405 


ensuring a good crop. They dance and beat drums for 
seven days and nights, and offer sacrifices to the ancestral 
Spirits, to the Earth, and to the Sky.’ . Again, when a 
husbandman is about to sow his field, he calls in the aid of 
the Chief of the Earth (Zengasoba) of his village and gives 
him a fowl, a goat, and so forth to sacrifice to the Evil 
Spirits, to the Earth, and to the Forest. The animals are 
roasted and eaten on the spot by the Chief of the Earth and 
the man on whose behalf the sacrifice is offered. Similarly, 
if the harvest turns out well, a thank-offering of a fowl, 
a goat, and so forth, is presented in the fields to the same 
divine powers.” 

Further to the south the worship of the Earth is The 
practised in similar form by the negro tribes in the interior pace ates 
of the Ivory Coast. Thus the Kulangos regard the Earth among 
as their great divinity. They think that she hates murderers, OC". 
thieves, sorcerers, and all who do ill. Often she is repre- of the 
sented by a tree of which the great roots ramify like serpents Bee 
on the ground. On these roots they place a block of massive... _ 
red ferruginous stone, looking on the tree, the roots, and the worship 
stone as symbols or images of the Earth. If they can find eee 
two or three of these trees so near together that their 
roots are’ intertwined, so much the better; the red block 
is then placed in the middle of the group of trees and 
completes the material representation of the great divinity.’ 

In the opinion of the Kulangos the Forest is a deity 
identical with the Earth, the mother of all vegetation.’ 
Besides the civil chief there is in every Kulango village a 
religious chief, who bears the title of Chief of the Earth 
(Sakotese, from sako, “earth”). If anybody wishes to 
sacrifice to the Earth, he must call in the aid of the Chief 
of the Earth, who will offer the sacrifice for him. Every 
seventh day is a day of rest, on which no work may be 
done; different villages choose different days of the week 
for their rest-day or Sabbath. On the Sabbath they 
assemble in the courtyard of the Chief of the Earth, 
bringing palm-wine with them. The Chief of the Earth 


1 L, Tauxier, Le Noir du Yatenga, 3 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Bondoukou 
Di ss7oe (Paris, 1921), p. 175. 
4 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Yatenga, + L. Tauxier, Ze Notr du Bondoukou, 


p. 380, p. 176. 


Sacr fices 
of the 
Kulangos 
to the 
Earth- 
goddess at 
burning the 
forest. 


Succession 
to the office 
of Chief of 
the Earth. 


406 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP. 


then prays that the Earth will be pleased to send a good 
crop, to protect the husbandmen, and to see that no evil 
befalls them. Then he offers a little of the palm-wine by 
pouring it out on the ground. After that all the people 
drink of the wine and enjoy this bounty of the divine 
civer,' 

In the dry season, which falls in December and January, 
when the Kulangos are about to burn the withered grass and 
kindle fires in the forest, they hold a festival which lasts from 
one to seven days. They beat drums, dance, and eat fowls, 
after having cut the throats of the birds and offered the blood 
to the Earth-goddess. They thank her for having given a 
good harvest, and pray that in burning the forest they may 
not be hurt by the wild beasts that lurk in it. They also pray 
that in these conflagrations the villages may not catch fire, an 
accident which often happens, partly through the negligence 
of the natives and partly through the force of the parching 
north-easterly wind, the harmattan. If anybody sets fire to 
the forest before the festival and before the Chief of the 
Earth has offered the usual sacrifice, that functionary obliges 
him to pay a fine of a goat and two fowls, which he sacrifices 
to the Earth to appease her anger. The forest fires are 
kindled to assist the people in clearing ground for cultivation 
and to make hunting easier.” 

When the Chief of the Earth dies, he is succeeded in 
office by his nephew, the eldest son of his eldest sister. If 
the heir is too young to take office, the sacrifices to ‘the 
Earth are offered by his mother till he is grown up, when he 
assumes. the priesthood in succession to his uncle.* The 
office of village chief is also hereditary, but it passes at 
death to the chief’s eldest son and not to his sister’s son.‘ 
Thus the archaic rule of hereditary transmission to a sister’s 
son is observed in succession to the religious office, while 
the succession to civil office is regulated by the more modern 
rule of hereditary transmission to a man’s own son. Here 
as usual religion is essentially conservative. 

~The Abrons, another tribe in the interior of the Ivory 


1 L. Tauxier, Le Noz7 du Bondoukou, 8 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Bondoukou, 
Dy ELovze p. 168, 
2 L. Tauxier, Le Nor du Londoukou, 4 L. Tauxier, Le Noir du Bondoukou, 


pp. 167 sq. p. 170. 


x THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 407 


Coast, also worship the Earth and offer sacrifices to her, Worship of 
especially when they are searching for gold." They also ae 
sacrifice a victim, generally a fowl, to the Earth at clearing Abrons. 
land for cultivation ; the blood of the fowl is the share of the 
goddess, its flesh is eaten .by the sacrificer. Further, they 
promise a fowl or a goat to the Earth if she gives them a 

good harvest; and when the goddess grants their prayer, 

they pay their vow.” 

The Nafanas, another pagan tribe in the interior of the Worship of 
Ivory Coast, recognize two great deities, the Sky and the ee nan 
Earth, to both of whom they offer sacrifices. They regard among the 
the Earth as the guardian of morality. They think that the ‘“’*"** 
Earth resents an act of unchastity committed in the forest, 
and that in such cases it is necessary to offer a sacrifice in 
order to appease her anger; otherwise she will not allow the 
rain to fall or will send some other calamity.° 

Among the Gagus, another tribe in the interior of the The Chief 
Ivory Coast, there is a Chief of the Earth (¢oua-kinit or seen 
toua-kéné) in every village besides the ordinary civil chief. Gagus: his 
Before the French occupation these Chiefs of the Earth were Shieh 
more important and had more power than the civil chiefs. 

The French have altered the balance of power, making it 
incline to the side of the civil instead of. the religious 
authority.* The Chief of the Earth used to offer sacrifices 
to the Earth for the whole village on a great stone that stood 
in his courtyard.. He interpreted the wishes of the Earth, 
and could announce that the deity would have no work done 
on a particular day. Thus he could prevent the villagers 
from going forth to their labour, even when they wished to 
work, and they obeyed from fear of incurring the vengeance 
of the goddess. On the other hand, if anybody was wounded 


1 L. Tauxier, Ze Noir du Bondoukou, 
p. 353. In the gold-bearing districts 


him in his mining operations. See 
(Sir) A. B. Ellis, Zhe Zshi-speaking 


of the Gold Coast, where the natives 
dug for alluvial gold, it was thought 
that the precious metal was brought 
up from the bowels of the earth by a 
local deity, who thus rewarded his 
worshippers for their offerings, When 
the supply of gold ran short, the people 
fancied that the god was angry or 
lacked labourers, so they sacrificed 
two or three slaves to him to assist 


Peoples of the Gold Coast (London, 
1887), pp. 69 sg. 

2 L. Tauxier, Ze Notr du Bondoukou, 
Pp. 309. 

3 LL. Tauxier, Le Notr du Bondoukou, 
Pp. 379. 

4 L. Tauxier, Véegres Gouroet Cagou, 
Centre de la Céte ad’lvotre (Paris, 
1924),.),,.135- 


Worship of 
the Earth 
among the 
Guros of 
the Ivory 
Coast. 


Chiefs of 
the Earth: 
their duties, 


408 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRIGA CHAP. 


or killed in the forest, the Chief of the Earth was responsible, 
and had to pay compensation to the wounded man or to the 
family of the deceased. Moreover, he had to sacrifice a young 
he-goat and a fowl to the Earth to pacify her wrath.’ A 
murderer had to give a kid to the Chief of the Earth, who 
sacrificed it to the Earth to appease her anger.” Theft also 
excited the wrath of that righteous deity, and the thief was 
obliged to soothe her by the sacrifice of a kid, which was 
offered to her by the Chief of the Earth. If the theft had 
been committed in another village than that of the thief, the 
sacrifice of the kid was offered half-way between the two 
villages by the Chiefs of the Earth of both places and in the 
presence of the two village chiefs and the elders of both 
villages.? So when there had been war between two villages 
and some of the combatants had been slain, the Chiefs of the 
Earth of the two sides used to meet half-way between the 
two villages and sacrifice two young he-goats to the Earth, 
begging her to forgive the slaughter and the blood that had 
been spilled. The civil chiefs and the elders of the villages 
attended the ceremony and partook of the flesh of the kids. 
Thus peace was restored between the villages.’ 

The Guros are another tribe in the interior of the Ivory 
Coast who revere the Earth as a great divinity, the upholder 
of the moral law.® .In respect of political evolution they 
stand at a somewhat higher level than the Gagus, for unlike 
the latter they have chiefs of tribes as well as chiefs of 
villages. Yet their social organization would seem to have 
remained essentially theocratic till it received a rude shock 
through contact with European civilization when the French 
invaded and conquered the country. For the tribal chiefs 
and their subordinates, the village chiefs, were rather priests 
than civil rulers; they all bore the title of Chief of the 
Earth (Zerezan, from ¢eré, “earth”), and their principal 


_ functions were religious, it being their duty to offer sacrifices 


to the Earth both periodically and on special occasions, 
when the wrath of the great goddess was excited by 


1 L, Tauxier, Végres Gouro et Gagou, p. 138. 


p.. 136. 4 L. Tauxier, Végres Gouro et Gagon, 
2 L. Tauxier, Vegres Gouroet Gagou, p. 139. 
Dela7 6 L. Tauxier, Wegres Gouro et Gagou, 


3 ‘L. Tauxier, Vagres Gouroet Gagou, pp. 248. 


x THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 409 


breaches of the moral law, such as murder, theft, rape, 
and adultery. The tribal chiefs, in their capacity of Chiefs 

of the Earth, sacrificed to the Earth on behalf of the whole 
tribe ; and the village chiefs, in their capacity of Chiefs of the 
Earth, sacrificed to Earth on behalf of the whole village.’ 
The periodic sacrifices include those offered at clearing 
the land for cultivation, at sowing, and at harvest,” but some 

at least of these appear to have been offered by the heads of Sacrifices 
families rather than by the Chiefs of the Earth. Thus among ois 
the southern Guros it is the head of a family who at sowing 
offers a fowl to the Earth on an ant-hill,? and among the 
central Guros it is the husbandman himself who sacrifices a 
fowl and a little rice to the Earth at clearing land for 
cultivation.* But among the northern Guros it is the 
tribal chief or Grand Chief of the Earth in person who 
sacrifices to the Earth at harvest, while the people drink 
palm-wine and dance to the sound of the drums for two 
days.” 

Among the crimes which, in the opinion of the Guros, Crimes 
had to be atoned for by an offering to the Earth, homicide "7c? Pad, 
or simple bloodshed was generally expiated by the sacri- for by | 
fice of a male kid, sometimes two kids, offered either by pears 
the Chief of the Earth or by the oldest man of the village,° 
but sometimes in the case of wounds the victim was a 
fowl.’ When somebody killed a person of another village, 
the village of the slain man or woman took up the 
quarrel and killed somebody of the homicide’s village 
immediately, it might be in the very night that followed 
the murder. The chief of the tribe then intervened to 
stop reprisals. He exacted a kid from the family of the 
first homicide, and a kid from the family of the second 
homicide, and the Chief of the Earth of the one village, 
bringing with him the kid, met the Chief of the Earth of 
the other village, bringing the other kid, at a point between 
the two villages, both chiefs being accompanied by the 


1 L, Tauxier, Vegres Gouroet Gagou, pp. 197. 


PP. I71, 182, 196 sg., 243, 244. 6 L, Tauxier, Mégres Gouro et Gago, 
2 L, Tauxier, Végres Gouro et Gagou, pp. 260, 
pp. 186, 197, 208, 225, 260. 6 LL. Tauxier, Vegres Gouro et Gagou, 
wy be Tancier Negres Gouro et Gagou, PP. 173, 175, 198, 199, 245. 
p. 186. 7 L. Tauxier, Vegres Gouro et Gagou, 


4 L, Tauxier, Végres Gouroet Gagou, p. 246. 


410 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP, 


inhabitants of their respective villages. At the place of 
meeting the great Chief of the Earth sacrificed the kids to 
the Earth, then seasoned the flesh with a medicine intended 
to prevent the repetition of such acts ; the medicine consisted 
of a little earth or sand gathered at the spot where the 
sacrifice had just been offered to the Earth. The people of 
the two villages ate the flesh thus seasoned, and the quarrel | 


was over.’ 
Sacrifices to When a man killed a member of another tribe, no com- 
the Earth 4s 3 ; 
aineree position for the murder was accepted, and the result was 


making. a petty war between the tribes which might last two or 
three years. When both sides were weary of hostilities, 
the great Chief of the Earth of a third tribe interposed his 
good offices as mediator between the combatants. If they 
accepted his mediation, the tribe which had killed the first 
man gave a kid, which was sacrificed to the Earth by the 
great Chief of the Earth. The kid was cut in two, and 
the tribe which had killed most men in the war enjoyed 
the privilege of eating the fore-quarters of the animal, while 
the tribe which had shed less blood acknowledged its 
inferiority by consuming the hind-quarters of the victim.” 
Sacrificesto Among the Guros the expiation for theft also con- 
Reece sisted in the sacrifice of a male kid to the Earth. These 
of crimes. people deemed rape a less serious offence than theft; the 
ravisher furnished a fowl, which was offered to the Earth as an 
atonement by the brother or husband of the injured woman.® 
Among the central Guros an adulterer had to give a kid 
and two fowls to the injured husband, who sacrificed them 
to the Earth; for if the wrath of the Earth at the adulteress 
were not thus appeased the woman’s children would die.’ 
Among the northern Guros the sacrifice of a fowl to the 
Earth was deemed sufficient to protect the guilty couple - 
and the innocent husband from the natural consequences 
of the crime.’ Another crime abhorred by the Earth was 
sorcery, the malignant art of killing a person by eating his 
or her soul. A convicted wizard or witch had to give a 


1 L. Tauxier, Végres Gouroet Gagou, pp. 174, 


p- 245. 4 L, Tauxier, Vegres Couro et Gagou, 
2 £,. Tauxier, Veyres Gouro et Gagou, p. 195. 
pp. 245 sg. 6 L, Tauxier, Végres Gouro et Gagott, 


3 L. Tauxier, Végres Gouroet Gagou, p. 241. 


x THEO WORSHIP OOF EARTH IN AFRICA 4Il 


goat and a fowl, or even a goat and a bull, which were 
sacrificed to the Earth in atonement of the horrid crime.’ 

On the whole, among these tribes of Upper Senegal and Moral 
the Ivory Coast the belief in the moral character of the great Da opee 
Earth deity appears to have exercised a powerful influence an Earth 
in enforcing respect for human life, for private property, and ack 
for the sanctity of the marriage tie. 

The Ashantis of the Gold Coast regard the Sky and the Worship of 
Earth as their two great deities. With their Sky-god, whose eas 
name is "Nyame, we have already dealt.27,_ The worship of the among the 
Earth-goddess is less well known, perhaps because it is not mat oT 
quite so obvious. No temple, no image is reared in her 
honour, but her power is none the less universally acknow- 
ledged. From the Earth, according to one of their most 
familiar myths, sprang some of the noblest of the Ashanti 
clans, for example the Oyoko, from whom the later Ashanti 
kings were descended. The Ashanti name for Earth is Asase 
Ya, that is, Old’ Mother Earth, The day dedicated to her 
worship was Thursday, and even now the Ashanti farmer 
will not till or break the soil on that day; down to some 
thirty years ago a breach of the rule was punished with 
death. To this day the Ashanti farmer makes an offering 
to Old Mother Earth every year on the day when he begins 
to till his land. He goes to the field, taking with him a 
fowl and some mashed plantain or yam which his wife or 
sister has cooked for him. Arrived at the field where work 
is to begin, he wrings the fowl’s neck, and letting the blood 
drip on the mashed yam and the earth he speaks as follows : 
“Grandfather So-and-so, you once came and hoed here and 
then you left it to me. You also Earth, Ya, on whose soil 
I am going to hoe, the yearly cycle has come round and 
I am going to cultivate; when I work let a fruitful year 
come upon me, do not let the knife cut me, do not let a 
tree break and fall upon me, do not let a snake bite me.” 

He then cuts up the fowl and mixes the flesh with the yam. 
After that he throws portions of the mixture to the four 
points of the compass; and some of the remains he places 


1 L. Tauxier, Végres Gouro et Gago, 3 R. S. Rattray, dshanti (Oxford, 
pp. 204, 222. 1923), pp. 214 sg. 
2 Above, pp. 97 s¢g¢. 


412 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN _ AFRICA CHAP. 


in a leaf and deposits on the spot where he stood in making 
the offering.’ 
eit ars Among the inhabitants of the Northern Territories of 
among the the Gold Coast there prevails a worship of the Earth like 
indabiants that which we have found characteristic of the inhabitants 
Northern Of Upper Senegal or the French Sudan, and the resemblance 
Pasa is natural enough since, as I have already pointed out, the 
Coast. boundary between the two countries is not racial but merely 
political, the same tribes being settled on both sides of it.” 
While the natives of the Northern Territories of the Gold 
Coast all recognize the existence of a great Sky-god or 
Supreme Being, whom they call Wuni, Weni, or We,’ they 
in practice pay much more attention to the Gods of the 
Earth; for, like the ancient Chinese, they have not risen 
to the general conception of a single Earth-god, the per- 
sonification of the whole earth, but believe in the existence 
of a great number of Earth-gods, each presiding over his 
own particular territory, like a human chief. For the most 
part every community possesses at least one Earth-god, and 
the names of the Earth-gods vary from place to place. 
Sacred They are invisible, but abide in natural objects, such as 
Apa eeont clumps of trees, rocks of large size or remarkable appearance, 
gods. and ponds; but clumps of trees are their favourite homes. © 
At Kanjaga, for example, there are two such sacred groves. 
One of them is a sinall cluster of fan palms surrounding 
a single tall one, all of them growing out of a white ants’ 
nest. The other is a group of short, long-leaved raphia 
palms such as grow in the marshes of the Ashanti forest. 
This latter grove, situated in a small dale otherwise bare of 
trees, presents a striking appearance, all the more so because 
these palms are elsewhere unknown in the district. The 
Propitia- propitiation of the local Earth-god is deemed of the utmost 
paeas importance, for, were it neglected, famine would surely follow 
after the as a consequence of the wrath of the offended deity. His 
Sf certain. righteous indignation is excited by the spilling of human 
area _blood on the ground, and by the commission of incest, 
bloodshed for such acts are thought to pollute the soil. Even so 
and incest. seemingly trivial an act as the shooting of an arrow in 


1 R. S. Rattray, Ashanti, pp. 215 sg. 2 Above, pp. 94 sg. 
3 Above, p. 95, 


ns THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 413 


anger suffices to disturb the equanimity of the sensitive 
deity. When such a deed has been done, or indeed anything 
untoward has happened, the particular Earth-god on whose 
domain the event took place must be appeased. The duty 
of making atonement devolves on the religious chief or 
priest who. bears the title of téxdana, tengyona, or tengsoba, 
meaning literally in every case the Owner of the Land or 
Chief of the Earth, as the corresponding official is commonly 
designated in Upper Senegal. It is his office to intercede 
between the people and the deity who gave them the land 
on which they live and the food which they eat. They say 
that no place is without its Chief of the Earth (¢zzdana), and 
to this day, if people migrate into an uninhabited country 
in the hope of finding there a less niggardly soil than the one 
they have left behind them, they must obtain a grant of 
land from the Chief of the Earth who happens to be nearest 
to the new settlement. As usual, the atonement takes the 
form of sacrifices, which are ordered by the Chief of the 
Earth to be performed as the occasion arises. He also 
appoints the day when the new crops may be eaten by the 
community ; in short, he regulates all matters that concern 
the religion of the Earth-god.? 

The requirements of the deity are revealed from time Sooth- 
to time by a soothsayer, who ascertains them by means of.2..° a 
certain magical stones, which he shakes out of a-bag. The Stones. 
divine wishes announced by this form of soothsaying are 
regularly gratified, or if not, so much the worse for the 
Chief of the Earth who is responsible for the omission. 
For example, the Chief of the Earth at Issa was informed by 
the soothsayer that his Earth-god desired a market to be 
re-established on the spot. The Chief delayed to comply - 
with the divine injunction, and in consequence his son 
was badly mauled by a leopard as a warning to the Chief 
himself to be less dilatory in obeying the deity.” Through 
the communication which the soothsayer thus maintains 
with the higher powers his services are indispensable, not 
only in religious matters but in the conduct of everyday 


1 A. W. Cardinall, 7he Natives of 2 A. W. Cardinall, Zhe Natives of 
the Northern Territories of the Gold the Northern Territories of the Gold 
Coast (London, N.D.), pp. 15-17, 24-26. Coast, pp. 26, 30. 


Worship of 


the Iarth- 
goddess 
among the 
Ewe- 
speaking 
people 

of Southern 
Togo. 


Oaths by 
the Earth, 


414 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP, 


life ; practically nothing is done without consulting him ; 
the whole structure of society is in his hands. Yet the 
stones by which he works his wonders are neither rare nor 
beautiful: they are just hard, smooth stones which may be 
picked up anywhere in the fields. The natives believe that 
the stones have fallen from heaven, so they gather them and 
pile them on the ancestral graves, or rather on the little 
pyramids of mud which are set up to serve as altars in the 
worship of the dead. But sceptical Europeans are of opinion 
that these precious stones are simply disused hand-grinders.’ 

The Ewe-speaking people of Southern Togo, a province 
to the east of Ashanti, worship the Earth as a goddess 
under the name of Anyigba. One of the epithets applied 
to the goddess is Mother of the Little Children, for she it is 
who bestows offspring on people. She also makes the yams 
to grow and trade to prosper; she gives good luck in 
hunting and victory in war. It is in her power, too, both 
to inflict and to heal sickness and disease. One day of the 
week, named aszamighe, is her rest-day or sabbath ; there- 
fore on that day it is unlawful to hoe the ground, to dig 
yams, and to thrust a stake into the earth, because such acts 
are clearly calculated to disturb her divine repose, if not 
to do her bodily injury. Anybody who hoes the ground 
on her sabbath will surely die. When a man is accused 
of theft or any other wrong and denies the accusation, 
he smites the earth with his hand, praying that the Earth 
may kill him if he is not speaking the truth; and if he 
is lying the Earth will surely kill him, for she can 
distinguish between truth and falsehood and make the 
distinction manifest. She is served by a priest whose 
office is hereditary, descending from father to son. The 
badges of the priest are two bells and a priestly cap 
woven of rushes.” If a man has sworn falsely by the Earth, 
his sin must be expiated by the sacrifice of two fowls and 
a goat, which the priest offers to the goddess, killing them 
without the use of a knife.” 


1 A. W. Cardinall, Zhe Natives of 56 sg., 59; zad., Die Ewe-Stamme 
the Northern Territories of the Gold (Berlin, 1906), p. 716. 
Coast, pp. 29-31. 

2 J. Spieth, Dze Religion der Eweer 3 J. Spieth, Dze Religion der Eweer 
in Siid- Togo (Leipzig, I911), pp. 72 Stvd-Togo, pp. 62 sg. 


ane THE WORSHIP OF EARTH 1N AFRICA 415 


When a wife is childless she goes with her husband Wite’s 
to the priest of the Earth. Her husband gives the priest you"? 
palm-wine, two hen’s eggs, some tobacco, and four strings goddess for 
of cowries, and begs him to pray the goddess to cause his“ i 
wife to conceive. The priest takes a little of the wine, 
names the goddess, gives the woman a chicken in her hand, 
and prays, saying, “ This woman says she would like to 
have a child, and if she gets one she will come again and 
thank thee”. Thereupon her husband says to the goddess, 

“TI have made over my wife to thee, that thou mayest give 
her a child, which she shall bear. If she gets a child, I will 
come again and thank thee.” The priest now commands 
the husband to inquire of his wife at home whether she has 
been guilty of any secret sin; for should she have sinned 
and not confess her fault before putting her hand in the 
sacrificial vessel of the goddess, she would surely die. If 
the wife agrees, she draws water next morning, and she and 
her husband go with the water to the priest. To him the 
woman confesses her secret sins. If she hides anything, 
she will surely die. After her confession the priest pours 
holy water into a vessel of the goddess, and causing the 
woman to kneel down pours the water over her. In the 
vessel are palm-kernels and pebbles, which consecrate 
the water. Then the priest withdraws, and the woman 
bathes in water taken from the holy vessel. After that the 
priest binds round the woman’s neck a cord made of the 
bark of the raphia palm, with two cowries fastened to 
the end. The cord signifies that the woman has been made 
over to the goddess. Twice a week, during the time that 
she is gone with child, the woman must bring maize-meal 
to the priest in order that he may feed the goddess with it. 
This the woman must do down to the day of her delivery. 
When her child is born and the navel string has fallen off, 
the mother brings the infant to the priest, who prays over it, 
bathes it, and ties a cord of raphia-palm bark about its neck. 
If the child thrives, the mother bathes it twice a week (on 
astamigbe and domesigbe) with water drawn from the holy 
vessel of the goddess. If the child is a girl, she will after- 
wards wash herself with water from the holy vessel. If the 
child is a boy, he will afterwards buy palm-wine for the 


The place 
of sacrifice. 


Offerings to 
the Earth- 
goddess 

at the 
planting 
of yams. 


Offerings to 
the Earth- 
goddess at 
the festival 
of the new 
yams. 


Offerings 
and prayers 
to the 
Earth- 
goddess 
for rain. 


CHAP. 


416 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 


priest, work on the priest’s field, and run errands for him 
to the neighbouring towns,’ 

The place of sacrifice is a great mound of earth in which 
the quills of a porcupine and the feathers of a certain bird 
(aklama) are inserted. On this mound fowls are sacrificed 
to the goddess.” 

When the time has come for planting the yams, all the 
towns bring each a piece of seed-yam to the priest of the 
Earth. ‘The women give maize, earth-nuts, and cotton-seeds, 
On the day of the week called domeszgbe, which, as we have 
seen, is the sabbath of the goddess, these gifts are brought 
to the priest. They are carried to the sanctuary in the 
forest, the seed-yams on three great wooden plates, and the 
maize, nuts, and cotton-seed in a basket; and on arriving at 
the holy place they are set down on the earth. When the 
people have returned home, the priest casts up two mounds. 
of earth and plants the seed-yams in them. After that he 
gives notice that any one who pleases may plant his yams. 

At the annual festival of the new yams all the chiefs 
bring an offering of two yams apiece to the priest of the 
Earth. To these offerings he adds his own, and carries 
the whole to the house of the goddess, where he prays, 
saying, “ To-day the life-yam has come into the town. Here 
is thy portion. Take and eat it. Thou must eat before we 
eat. May no man who eats yams to-day suffer pain.” There 
in the house of the goddess the yams are left, and the priest 
returns home. Arrived there, he cooks some of the new 
yams, mixes them with oil, and strews them all about his 
house and courtyard. When he has done so, everybody is 
free to eat the new yams.* 

In time of long drought the servants of the chiefs go 
about the town catching fowls. When they have caught 
about a score, they bring them to the house of the Earth- 


1 J. Spieth, Dre Religion der Eweer 
tn Stid-Togo, p. 58. 

2 J. Spieth, Dee Religion der Eweer 
in Stid-Togo, pp. 58 59., 59 Sg. 

3 J. Spieth, Dre Religion der Eweer 
in Stid-Togo, p. 60. 

4 J. Spieth, Dée Religion der Eweer 
én Stido-Togo, p. 60. Among the 


Hos of Togo the Earth-deity to whom 
the new yams are offered is a male 
god named Agbasia, See J. Spieth, . 
Die Ewe-Stimmnie, pp. 304-310, 340; 
The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of 
the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 58-62. 
In a prayer to Agbasia the priest ad- 
dresses him: as ‘‘QOur Father” (J. 
Spieth, Dre Hwe-Stamme, p. 308). 


x THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 417 


goddess on her sabbath (domeszgbe). There the priest prays 
over the fowls, saying, “ Because it rains no more, the elders 
have stolen these fowls for thee. Grant therefore that the 
rain again falls on the crops and not upon men.” In thus 
praying the priest holds up a cock and a hen. After the 
prayer he kills them both by dashing them on the ground. 
The flesh of the birds is then cooked and eaten, and at the 
conclusion of the meal the worshippers drink palm-wine.’ 

When the chiefs hear that an infectious disease is raging; Offerings 
they go together to the priest of the Earth. He prays, anne 
saying, “ We have heard that an evil disease is raging. Let Earth- 
it not come to us. If thou wilt hinder it from coming to us Sone: 
we will give thee a goat.” Next morning the whole town is disease. 
swept and the sweepings are carried outside the walls. On the 
third day all the fires in the whole town must be extinguished, 
and the ashes are carried out of the town by women on 
broken wooden plates. The chiefs take thick clubs, wrapt 
in creepers, fasten a toad and the fruit of the calabash-tree 
to a fresh palm-leaf, and going out into the forest throw 
away the leaf and its contents. On their return fires may 
again be lit in the town? | 

On the outbreak of war the chiefs gather to the priest of Offerings 
the Earth, and he prays to the Earth, saying, for example, 7¢Ph""" 


? to the 
“The men of Agate are about to go to war. If nobody on Earth- 


our side falls, we will give thee a goat.” Then the warriors Sears 
take a white fowl, go out into the street, hold up the bird, 
and pray, saying, “ To-day thy children are about to go to 
war and have made a sign for themselves. Therefore be 
round about them, and if none of us falls in the war, we will 
come and thank thee.” After praying thus each man plucks 
a feather of the white fowl and fastens it to his gun. The 
servants of the chiefs kill the fowl and eat it, after which the 
warriors march away to the battle.’ 

We have seen that the Bafioti of Loango believe in a Worship of 
great deity named Zambi or Nsambi, who created men but, the Barth: 


god Mkissi 
1 J. Spieth, Dze Religion der Eweer of the new yams, See J. Spieth, Deze ae 
in Stid-Togo, p. 60. Ewe -Stimme, pp. 305-307: The among the 
2 J. Spieth, Die Religion der Eweer Golden Bough, Part VI. The Scapegoat, Bafioti of 
in Stid-7ogo, pp. 60 s7. Among the pp. 134-136. Loango. 
Hos of Togo a similar ceremony is 3 J. Spieth, Die Religion der Eweer 


annually performed before the eating 7% Sud-Zogo, p. 61. 
VOL. I | ; 2E 


Native 
opinions 
as to the 
Earth-god, 


418 THE WORSHIP OP CEARTH AN APRICA CHAP. 


wearied by their importunity, retired from earth to heaven, 
where he now dwells aloof from human affairs and occupies 
himself but little with the weal and woe of his creatures.’ 
However, they think that at his departure to a higher sphere 
the deity did not leave this lower world entirely forlorn. He 
either left behind him or sent down from above a certain 
being named Mkissi nssi or Bunssi, whose name and attributes 
appear to mark him out as an earth-god, though the native 
opinions about him are various and conflicting. His name 
Mkissi nssi is compounded of mzssz, “magic”, and zssz, 
“earth”; so that literally it signifies “ Magic-earth”. His 
other name Bunssi is sometimes explained as meaning 
mama ma nssi, that is, “Mother Earth”, from mama, 
“mother”, and #ssz,“earth™.’ He“or she appears? tobe 
an embodiment of the earth viewed in its productive and 
fertilizing aspect. Like Nsambi himself, he is invisible and 
intangible; but, unlike Nsambi, he dwells in the earth 
and comes up occasionally to the surface, especially at places 
where in former times public fires were maintained on behalf 
of the State.” His function is to look after the welfare of all 
that dwell on Nsambi’s earth, particularly to regulate the 
fertility of the ground and the distribution of rain. This he 
does chiefly by requiring the strict maintenance of the sacred 
taboos (chzna), which are nothing but the commands and pro- 
hibitions issued by the great god Nsambi himself. Breaches 
of these ordinances bring down misfortunes either on the 
guilty district or on the whole country, and for the sake of 
the general weal they must be punished and expiated. 
Closely connected with these beliefs are the notions of the 
holiness of the earth and the importance of its fertility, 
which, for an agricultural people like the Bafioti, is an 
essential condition of life. 

The native opinions about the Earth-god Mkissi nssi or 
Bunssi are, as we have seen, various and conflicting. The 
old orthodox opinion would seem to be that he is one and 
all powerful and everywhere the same; but others hold that 
there are many independent Earth-gods differing from each 

1 Above, pp. 136 sgy. pp. 276 sy, 


2 Ff. Pechuel-Loesche, ()%e Loanvyo- 3K. Pechuél-Loesche, Die Loango- 
Expedition, wi, 2 (Stuttgart, 1907), £.vfpedttzon, ii, 2, p. 277. 


x PUNO RST Of LAR YIN APRIGA 419 


other in power, and that every district has its own particular 
Earth-god, each with his own special name. Some believe 
that the Earth-god was established by the great god Nsambi; 
others say that he has nothing to do with Nsambi. Some 
think that he no longer exists or at least is no longer 
active, that like Nsambi he has retired from business and 
withdrawn into the depths of the earth or somewhere else 
far away. 

In the old days, when native kings reigned in Loango, 
the sanctuaries of the Earth-god were also the places where 
the king’s sacred fires burned perpetually. Such spots are 
still well remembered by the people, who will not pass them 
by without doing them reverence.” At the present day the 
sanctuaries of the Earth-god are found either in the forest 
remote from dwellings or in the villages, sometimes sur- 
rounded by a clump of trees, sometimes standing on the 
edge of a thicket. They all contain a building of some 
sort, varying from a solitary and much weathered hut to a 
_ more elaborate structure in which a number of fetish-men or 
magicians may be lodged. The materials used in their con- 
struction are largely papyrus stems and palm branches; the 
wooden posts and beams are often carved and painted red 
and black; the walls, made of slim papyrus stems set close 
together, are sometimes decorated with graceful patterns 
formed by dark stalks of plants or creepers, which are 
woven in and out of the papyrus stems so as to produce the 
effect of embroidery. The simplest form of sanctuary con- 
sists of a square or oblong hut, closed on all sides and built 
on a floor of beaten earth. In a single place Dr. Pechuél- 
Loesche saw a circular hut, open on all sides, with a thatched 
conical roof supported on seven round wooden pillars. The 
existence of such a round hut, dedicated to the Earth-god 
Bunssi, is all the more remarkable because the nearest round 
huts are said to be situated far to the north in the Cameroons 
mountains.® 


The 
sanctuaries 
of the 
Earth-god 
in Loango. 


The sanctuaries of the Earth-god are characterized by Simplicity 
great simplicity. No sacred animals are kept in them, and % t 


1 E. Pechuél-Ioesche, Die Loango- Expedition, iii. 2, pp. 278, 281. 
Expedition, iii. 2, pp. 278, 279. 3 FE. Pechuél-Loesche, Die Loango- 
2 E. Pechuel-Loesche, Die Loango- Expedition, iii. 2, pp. 282-284. 


sanctu- 
aries. 


The priest 
of the 
Earth-god. 


Prayers to 
the Earth- 
God for 
rain, 


Other occa- 
sions of 
consulting 
the priest. 


420 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP. 


no bloody sacrifices are offered; no one may hunt in the 
neighbourhood. At the entrance of some, but not all, of the 
huts, an antelope horn or a leaden funnel is stuck in the 
ground as a_ receptacle for the palm-wine or rum which 
worshippers offer to the Earth-god.’ 

The priest who is charged with the guardianship of the 
sanctuary and with the performance of all rites at it must be 
a man of sound and unblemished body who has never shed 
blood. He receives no regular salary, but is maintained by 
the offerings of the faithful, for whom he performs the offices 
of religion. He has no official costume and no official dwell- 
ing; he resides in the village, and for days or weeks to- 
gether may not go near the sanctuary of which he has charge. 
None but he may enter the holy building: he must celebrate 
the rites between sunrise and sunset: he must have fasted 
and abstained from women since the evening before. How- 
ever, these rules are said to be now not everywhere strictly 
observed. From a variety of indications it is inferred that 
in the regal period the priests of the Earth-god were trained 
smiths and workers in metal. Nothing is known of stone 
tools in Loango. When the priest enters the holy house 
and shuts the door behind him to convey the petition of the 
worshipper to the deity, he rings an iron hand-bell, which, like 
all his priestly furniture, must be of native workmanship.’ 

_ In time of severe drought the people go on pilgrimage 
to one of.these sanctuaries to pray for rain. Arrived at the 
holy place they take up position on three sides of a square 
facing towards the house of the god, and wait in silence till 
the sun rises. Then they all begin to pray in a loud voice, 
their prayer being accompanied by the beating of drums and 
the blowing of horns, while the priest is officiating and ring- 
ing his bell in the house. So it goes on without a break till 
sunset, or until the people, who must be fasting, are com- 
pletely exhausted. Such assemblies are said in times of 
great distress to have numbered many thousands.® 

Different and more complicated are the rites of the © 
sanctuary when the pilgrims come to ask for help in their 

1 FE. Pechuél-Loesche, Die Loango- Expedition, iii, 2, pp. 285-287. 


Expedition, iii. 2, p. 284. 3 E, Pechuél-Loesche, Die Loango- 
* E, Pechuél-Loesche, Die Loango- Expedition, iii,.2, pp. 288 sg. 


x THE. WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 421 


private affairs or to do penance for sins which they have 
committed by breaking taboos. The occasions which induce 
them thus to go on pilgrimage may be long-continued sick- 
ness, or inexplicable misfortunes, or the fear of coming evils. 
The priest consoles and encourages the sick, the dejected, 
and the sinful by a variety of antics, clashing iron instru- 
ments of antique patterns or scraping the rust off them into 
water, cutting capers and prancing round the pilgrims, puffing 
at them, stroking them, painting red, yellow, and white lines, 
dots, and circles on their bodies, or setting vessels full of 
water on their heads and observing the ways in which the water 
overflows. Finally, he assures them that all is now well and 
dismisses them with advice for their conduct in the future.’ 
Among the sins which in the native opinion are fraught 
with serious consequences are sexual offences, and the guilty 
couple must do penance at a sanctuaryof the Earth-god. They 
must fast from meat and drink for twenty-four hours, then 
appear at sunrise at the holy place, their bodies clean shaven 
and smeared with charcoal, their heads and shoulders sprinkled 
with ashes. They bring two new mats and a pair of un- 
blemished fowls, which must be either pure white or pure 
black in colour; the man brings the hen, and the woman 
the cock. The mats are unrolled before the door of the hut, 
and the sinners take their stand on them, while the priest 
with a piece of iron traces a circle about them on the ground. 
Next he tethers the cock to the ankle of the woman and the 
hen to the ankle of the man, but so that the fowls can 
approach each other, for from the behaviour of the birds one 
to the other omens are said to be drawn as to the future 
weal or woe of the guilty pair. The sinners now make 
their confession in a low voice, and the priest afterwards 
repeats it in the holy hut, ringing his bell at the same time. 
The ceremony of confession is repeated thrice, at sunrise, at 
noon, and at sunset. All that time, till darkness falls, the 
pair must stand silent and motionless, exposed to the jeers, 
the witticisms, and the reproaches of passers-by or of the 
villagers who have gathered to witness their penance. It is 
related that on one such occasion the woman, unable to bear 
the shame of the exposure, fled from the-spot, but the angry 
1 E, Pechu2l-Loesche, Die Loango-E xpedition, iii, 2, p. 289. | 


Penance 
done by 
sinners 

at the 
sanctuary 
of the 
Earth-god. 


Purifica- 
tion of 
sinners. 


Why 
sexual 
crimes are 
deemed 
grave. 


Hunters 
bring the 
heads of 
game to the 
Earth-god. 


422 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP. 


crowd pursued and killed her, and then put her paramour 
also to death.’ 

Many of these penitents are said to be obliged to appear 
at the sanctuary for three days in three successive months, 
after full moon, and to creep on all fours or to hop on one 
leg thrice round the holy hut. And by way of cleansing 
them from their sin earth is thrown on them, dust is puffed 
at them, and they are sprinkled with rust scraped from 
a sacred implement of iron. Other modes of purification 
are sprinkling the sinners with salt water and forcing them 
to leap over wisps of burning grass. It is probable that the 
rites of penance vary with the nature and gravity of the 
misdemeanour.” The reason of the extreme seriousness 
with which the natives of Loango regard breaches of sexual 
morality is that such offences are supposed by them to blight 
the fertility of the earth, especially by stopping the rainfall.” 
Similar notions prevail and lead to similar practices in other 
parts of Africa. Thus among the Chagga of Mount Kili- 
manjaro almost the most heinous crime was deemed sexual 
intercourse between a girl and.an uncircumcised lad, because 
such an offence was thought to bring misfortune on the land. 
Hence, if the girl was got with child, the guilty pair were 
laid one on the top of the other and staked to the ground. 
This was done above or below the cultivated land, and the 
corpses were left unburied.* 

In Loango hunters are expected to bring to the priest 
of the Earth-god the fresh heads of the animals which they 
have killed, along with the tongues. The flesh is eaten at 
the sanctuary, and the priest adds the skull to the heap 
of mouldering skulls and bones which gradually accumulates 
at the holy place. The reason alleged for the custom is 
that the animals live on the products of the earth. A 
hunter who omits to bring a fresh head of game to the 
sanctuary of the Earth-god is bound, according to the 
priests, to do penance for the omission; for they say that 
by his negligence he has injured the earth and lost his luck 


1 E. Pechuel-Loesche, Dze Loango- Second Edition (London, 1913), pp. 


Expedition, iii, 2, pp. 290 sg. 54 599- 
2 E. Pechuel-Loesche, Die Loango- 
Expedition, iii, 2, pp. 291 sg. * Ch. Dundas, Atdimanjaro and its 


3 J. G. Frazer, Psyche’s Task, People (London, 1924), p. 296. 


- THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 423 


in the chase.’ It might naturally be thought that the first- 
fruits of the ground would be offered at the sanctuaries of 
the Earth-god, but there is no strict rule on the subject, 
and such offerings are said to be few in number and small 
in quantity.” 


The Baganda, the once powerful nation who give their Worship of 
name to the Uganda Protectorate, used to worship an Earth- Sandie 
god whom they called Kitaka. He had a temple in among the 
Busiro, where his will was interpreted by a prophet. When 2*8°2¢* 
the king contemplated putting to death people who had 
been condemned by the other gods, he would often send 
to Kitaka and ask him to destroy the ghosts of the doomed 
men. Speaking in the name of Kitaka, the prophet under- 
took to destroy both their bodies and their spirits, so that 
their ghosts could not return to harm the king. Kitaka was 
consulted by women when they wished to ensure the fertility 
of a garden which they had just laid out ; moreover, prayers 
and offerings were addressed to him in order that the land 
might yield abundant crops.’ 

But the Baganda also believed in another Earth-god Musisi, 
named Musisi, whom they held to be responsible for earth- pene 
quakes. He had his temple on one of the Sese Islands in of the 
Lake Victoria Nyanza, but he was believed to dwell in the **8*"** 
centre of the earth and to cause earthquakes when he moved 
about. At such times anybody who had fetishes at hand 
patted them and asked the god to keep quiet; pregnant 
women patted their stomachs to prevent the god from taking 
either their own life or that of their unborn child; others 
raised a shrill cry to remind the deity of their existence and 
to induce him to remain still. He was not a god who was 
much consulted by the people, but they made him gifts lest 
he should be angry and disturb the earth by his movements.’ 

In the central district of Busoga, the country which Worship ot 
adjoins the territory of the Baganda on the east, the Earth- ae 
god Kitaka is believed to be the cause of earthquakes, among the 


a ° . soga, 
The Basoga think that the god is present in the form of a Orin 
1 FE. Pechuél-Loesche, Die Loango- 3 J. Roscoe, 7he Baganda (London, 
Expedition, iii. 2, pp. 291 sg. IQII), pp. 312 5g. 
2 E. Pechuél-Loesche, Dze Loango- 4-J. Roscoe, Zhe Baganda, pp. 


Expedition, iii, 2, p. 292. 313 59g. 


424 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP, 


great stone or rock. Accordingly they build a shrine beside 
the rock to receive offerings, and they go thither to pray to 
the deity. Sometimes men disappear from the district and 
are said to have been spirited away by the god. Fowls and 
goats are sacrificed at the rock; the blood is poured out on 
the ground beside the shrine, and the head of the victim is 
buried close by. The worshippers cook and eat the meat in 
the vicinity of the rock.’ 


tow the The Basoga say that sometimes Kitaka journeys through 
Earth- the land and causes the earth to quake on his passage. He 
quake god , , : 
Kitaka. is always followed by another god named Kibaho, who is 
Passes greatly feared, because plague or sickness of some kind 
through 


Busoga usually dogs his steps, unless it can be averted. So when 
are a tremor of the earth betrays the passage of Kitaka, the 
follower medicine-men set to work to ward off the evil which his 
Kibaho. follower might bring in his train. They say that Kitaka 
passes from Mount Elgon to Lake Kyoga; hence when an 
earthquake is felt they call on the people to cut a path for 

the god Kibaho, in order that he may pass by as swiftly as 
possible. So in each district the people cut down the grass 

and shrubs and smooth a road some ten feet wide, while 

others bring food and place it at the boundary of their land 

to be carried on by the inhabitants of the next district. 

This road is said to expedite the god and to carry him 
through to Lake Kyoga without doing any harm. The 

people of the next district take up the work and pass on the 

victuals to their boundary ; and in this manner the path is 

made and the food carried on, with additions from each 
district, until the shore of Lake Kyoga is reached. There a 

canoe is ready, and the food is put into it and rowed to an 

island, where a priest takes the food and offers it to the god 

by scattering it upon the water. This offering averts the 

plague and death that otherwise would almost certainly have 
attended the passage of the Earthquake-god Kitaka and his 

: dreadful follower.’ | 
aa Among the Banyankole, a pastoral people whose 
kolein country adjoins that of the Baganda on the south-west, 


the Earth- one ats 
quake gods the Earthquake - god was originally known as Omusisi, a 


Omusisi 
and 1 J, Roscoe, Zhe Northern Bantu 2 J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu, 
Nabingé. (Cambridge, 1915), pp. 250 sy. p. 251, 


se THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA 425 


name which is clearly identical with Musisi, the appellation 
of the Earthquake-god among the Baganda. But of late 
years some people among the Banyankole have claimed 
to be the prophets of another Earthquake-god called 
Nabinge. These prophets or priests built a hut and hung 
about in it things that rattled when they were shaken. So 
when anybody came to consult the oracle the priests made a 
noise like the rumbling of an earthquake and shook the hut 
till it seemed to be falling down. This so terrified the 
applicants that they willingly made offerings to the priests 
in order to avert the threatened danger.’ 

The worship of this Earthquake-god Nabinge has in 
recent years spread also among the Bakyiga, a large tribe 
of the Bantu stock who inhabit the mountainous region 
called Kigezi to the east of Lake Edward. They are a 
wild and truculent people, who set little value on human 
life and in their mountain fastnesses long maintained their 
independence against all comers. The country inhabited 
by these savages, with its wonderful mountain scenery, its 
tropical luxuriance of vegetation, its dashing waterfalls and 
calm lakes spangled with water-lilies and embosomed in 
forests of grand timber, is said to be the most beautiful in 
Eastern Africa.” Like the Basoga, the Bakyiga associate 
the outbreak of plague or other sickness with the Earth- 
quake-god and think that on such occasions it is neces- 
sary to appease his wrath. So the headman of the village 
builds a shrine and calls upon the people to bring offerings 
of goats and sheep, which, according to their number, are 
exchanged for a cow or cows. One cow is sacrificed, and the 
blood, heart, and liver are the portion of the deity ; the blood 
is allowed to run on the ground, while the heart and liver a e 
placed in the shrine. Some of the meat is cooked and eaten 
on the spot, and the people carry the rest to their homes.” 


Worship of 
the Earth- 
quake-god 
Nabinge 
among the 
Bakyiga. 


On the eastern slope of the great Luenzori range, Offeringsto 


between Lake Edward and Lake Albert, there are at various 


rock-spirits 
at earth- 


places boiling springs, where the natives have long been quakes. 


accustomed to take vapour baths as a cure for fever or 


1 J. Roscoe, The Banyankole (Cam- 2-J. Roscoe, The Bagesu (Cam- 
bridge, 1923), p. 25. bridge, 1924), pp. 162 5g. 
3 J. Roscoe, The Bagesu, p. 166. 


Worship 
of the 
Earth- 
Spirit 
Irungu 
among the 
natives of 
Kiziba. 


426 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AFRICA CHAP. X 


rheumatism. At one place the bubbling of the water under 
a rock can be both heard and felt ; the people say that 
a rock-spirit dwells there and makes his presence known by 
this noise. They used to make offerings here whenever a 
severe shock of earthquake was felt. These shocks are 
frequent and sometimes severe.’ 

The natives of Kiziba, a district to the west of Lake 
Victoria Nyanza, believe in the existence of an Earth-spirit 
called Irungu, who, at the bidding of the Supreme Being 
Rugaba or of a powerful spirit named Wamara, fashioned 
the earth, the mountains, and the woods, and peopled them 
with animals. For the use of this. Earth-spirit every 
householder builds two miniature huts of grass or sticks 
to right and left of the doorway of his own hut; in 
shape the little huts resemble the big one; their doors must 
face in the same direction. In each of the tiny huts is 
placed a potsherd with an offering of bananas for the spirit. 
Irungu presides not only over the house but also over the 
forest trees that grow on the edge of the banana groves, also 
over any rivers that may flow there, and over the birds. It 
is especially necessary to propitiate him when one of his 
creatures, the wild animals, has been killed either in the 
chase or by accident. All who have been concerned in the 
slaughter, sometimes amounting to hundreds of men, assemble 
before the house of the Earth-spirit, with the dead animal 
lying in their midst. The priest comes forth with the 
severed bloom of a banana-cluster in his hand. This he 
cuts in two with a knife, inserts wood of various sorts 
between the halves, and then presses the whole together. 
After that he kills a fowl, sticks it on a spit with the banana- 
bloom, carries it into the hut of the Earth-spirit, and there 
roasts it. As soon as they perceive the smell of the roast 
fowl the hunters form in line, and, preceded by the priest, 
stride over the dead game. Thus the anger of the Earth- — 
spirit at the slaughter of his creature is appeased. Such an 
expiatory rite is called by a name which means “healing ” 
(kutamba). 

1 J. Roscoe, Zhe Soul of Central Leute (Stuttgart, 1910), pp. 126, 


Africa (London, etc., 1922), p. 124. 127 sg., with the illustration on_p. 
2H. Rehse, <Avzzba, Land und 128, 


de rea EN Cee 8 Gt 
THE WORSHIP OF EARTILT IN AMERICA 


MANY of the American Indians appear to have personified The Earth 
the Earth as their mother and to have supposed that their Papo 
first ancestors issued from it as a child from the womb. by the 
Thus with regard to the Lenni Lenape or Delaware aches 
Indians, who formerly inhabited Pennsylvania, we are 
informed by an old observer that “the Indians consider 
the earth as their universal mother. They believe that they Beliefofthe 
were created within its bosom, where for a long time they ice 
had their abode, before they came to live on its surface. that their 
They say that the great, good, and all powerful Spirit, when 2780's | 
he created them, undoubtedly meant at a proper time to put from the 
them in the enjoyment of all the good things which he had “"" 
prepared for them upon the earth, but he wisely ordained 
that their first stage of existence should be within it, as the 
infant is formed and takes its first growth in the womb of its 
natural mother. . . . The Indian mythologists are not agreed 
as to the form under which they existed while in the bowels 
of the earth. Some assert that they lived there in the human 
shape, while others, with greater consistency, contend that 
their existence was in the form of certain terrestrial animals, 
such as the ground-hog, the rabbit, and the tortoise.” ’ 

Beliefs of the same sort prevailed also among the Similar 
Iroquois, as we learn from the evidence of a Mohawk chief ee hs 
which was taken down in January 1743 by the Rev. Iroquois. 


Christopher Pyrlaeus. It runs as follows: 


1 Rev. John Heckewelder, ‘‘An neighbouring States”, Zramsactions of 
Account of the History, Manners, and (¢he Historical and Literary Committee 
Customs of the Indian Nations who of the American Philosophical Society, 
once inhabited Pennsylvania and the i, (Philadelphia, 1819) pp. 241 sg. 


427 


Belief of 
the Ottawa 
Indians in 
Earth, the 
_Great- 
grand- 
mother of 
All. 


428 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA CHAP. 


“ Tradition. That they had dwelt in the earth where it 
was dark and where no sun did shine. That though they 
followed hunting, they ate mice, which they caught with 
their hands. That Ganawagahha (one of them) having 
accidentally found a hole to get out of the earth at, he went 
out, and that in walking about on the earth he found a deer, 
which he took back with him, and that both on account of 
the meat tasting so very good, and the favourable description 
he had given them of the country above and on the earth, 
their mother concluded it best for them all to come out; 
that accordingly they did so, and immediately set about 
planting corn, etc. That, however, the NWocharauorsul, that 
is, the ground hog, would not come out, but had remained in 
the ground as before.” ? 

The Ottawa Indians, a branch of the great Algonkin 
family, believed that a certain being, whom they called 
Na-na-bush, created the ground in obedience to the commands 
of the Great Spirit, and further that, as a benevolent inter- 
cessor between the Supreme Being and mankind, he procured 
the creation of the animals, in order that their flesh might 
serve men as food and their skins as raiment. He also sent 
down roots and medicines of sovereign power to heal the 
sicknesses of mankind and in times of hunger to enable them 
to kill the wild beasts. All these things, destined for the 
benefit of the human race, were committed to the care of 
Me-suk-kum-mik O-Kwi, or the Earth, the Great-grand- 
mother of All; and in order that men and women should 
never call upon her in vain, the Old Woman was directed to 
remain constantly at home in her lodge. Hence it is that 
good Indians never dig up the roots of which their medicines 
are made without at the same time depositing in the earth 
something as an offering to Me-suk-kum-mik O-Kwi. They 
also sing to her the songs in which they relate the creation 
of the earth and animals and all other good things by 
Na-na-bush.’” 


1 Quoted by J. Heckewelder, of. cé¢. 
pp. 243 sg. The Mohawks were a 


(London,. 1830), pp. 192 sg. That 
the Indians among whom Tanner lived 


tribe of Iroquois: their proper name 
was Caniengas. 

2 Narrative of the Captivity and 
Adventures of John Tanner, prepared 
for the press by Edwin James, M.D. 


as a captive were Ottawas appears 
to follow from his statement (p. 36) 
that his captor was a kinsman of 
Net-no-kwa, the principal chief of the 
Ottawwaws (Ottawas). 


XI THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA 429 


The Winnebagos, an Indian tribe of the Siouan stock, Belief of 
similarly look upon the earth as a goddess. She is indeed "= Wi™ 
e . . e ats 
one of the most ancient deities of the tribe, and appears as an Earth- 


the Grandmother in some of their oldest myths. Offerings See 
are made to her at the various ceremonies, particularly at call Grand- 
the medicine-dance and the war-bundle feast. However, in Dera 
the myths she is represented as a being nowise interested in 
furthering the welfare of mankind; on the contrary, she is 

spoken of as the sister of those bad spirits who are bent on 
destroying the human race.’ She is generally known either 

as Earth (sana) or simply as Grandmother (kuxzka). Her 
connexions are almost exclusively with peace. She played 

a far greater part in the earlier than in the later phases of 
Winnebago religion, and she figures prominently in the 

stories of transformation, in which her grandson the Hare is 

also an important personage. In the myths which are told to 

explain the origin of rites her character is changed from that 

of a somewhat indifferent, and at times hostile, deity to that 

of a beneficent all-loving Mother-earth.” 

The following are specimens of Winnebago prayers Winne- 
addressed to the Earth-goddess at what are called war- eee a 
bundle feasts. Thus after offering tobacco, with prayers, to the Eartb- 
the Moon and the Morning Star, the officiant prays as ®°°o°* 
follows: “To you, grandmother, the Earth, do we offer 
tobacco also. We pray for victory in war, and for all the 
medicines that are necessary to attain it, so that we may 
bind ourselves with medicine; that we may use the flowers 
of the earth for paint—all that is red and all that is blue— 
this we ask of you. Should there be anything better, we 
ask that you arrange it so that we obtain it. Tobacco and 
corn for food do we offer to you, and should you need more 
tobacco we will send it along. Here it is.”® 

Again, on a similar occasion, the officiant prays, saying, 

“You who are our grandmother, Earth, you blessed grand- 
father Djobenaegiwiexga with life and war powers. As far 
as you extend, that far, O grandmother, do we spread out 
for you tobacco and food and mocassins. Here is the 


1 P. Radin, ‘‘The Winnebago tribe”, ington, 1923), p. 286. | 
Thirty-seventh Annua! Report of the 2 P. Radin, of, cit. pp. 440 57. 
Bureau of American Ethnology (Wash- 3 P, Radin, of, ct. p. 536. 


Worship of 


the Earth 
among the 
Cheyenne 
Indians. 


430 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA CITAP. 


tobacco. Here in the fire shall I place tobacco; and food 
and offerings of buckskin will we send to you at all times. 
You will always accept them, grandfather said, it is said, so 
that our clansmen may travel in a straight path of war and 
life.” ? 

The Cheyenne Indians, a tribe of the western plains who 
belong to the Algonkin stock, say that there is a principal 
god named Heammawihio, who lives up aloft, and that there 
is also a god called Ahk tun o wihio, who lives under the 
ground. Both deities are beneficent, and they’ possess like 
powers. Next after Heammawihio, we are informed, “ the 
power of the earth is named in prayer. It is implored to 
make everything grow which we eat, so that we may live; 
to make the water flow, that we may drink; to keep the 
ground firm, that we may live and walk on it; to make 
grow those plants and herbs that we use to heal ourselves 
when we are sick; and to cause to grow also the grass on 
which the animals feed.” Such reverence for the earth is 
general among the western Indians.* On this subject, the 
same writer, Mr. G. B. Grinnell, whose acquaintance with the 
western Indians extends over half a century, tells us that 
“the almost universal reverence of the Indians for the earth 
is interesting in connection with their feeling about the 
ownership of land. The earth is regarded as sacred, often it 
is called the ‘mother’, and it appears to rank second among 
the gods. AQ sacrifice of food is held up first to the sky and 
then is deposited on the earth, and perhaps rubbed into the 
soil. The first smoke is directed to the sky, the second to 
the earth, and then those to the four directions in order. 
Other sacrifices are commonly held up first to the sky, and 
then are held toward the earth. Before beginning to perform 
any sacred office, the priest or doctor holds his hands first 
towards the sky, and then rubs them on the ground. ‘It is 
by the earth’, they say, ‘that we live. Without it we could 
not exist. It nourishes and supports us. From it grow 
the fruits that we eat, and the grass that sustains the 
animals whose flesh we live on; from it come forth, and 
over its surface run, the waters which we drink. We 


' P, Radin, of. cz/. p. 501 3 com- 2G, B. Grinnell, Zhe Cheyenne 
pare zd, pp. 449, 459, 469. fndians (New Haven, 1923), ii. 88, 89. 


of THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA 431 


walk on it, and unless it is firm and steadfast we cannot 
live’)? 

The Klamath Indians of south-western Oregon regard Personi- 
the Earth as a mysterious, shadowy power of incalculable (yon 
energies and influences, rather .mischievous and wicked than among the 
beneficial to mankind. They ascribe anger and other PES 
passions to it, but their personification of it has not advanced 
beyond a rudimentary stage. In the many tales which 
they tell about the Earth, that mysterious power nowhere 
appears as an active deity.2. An Indian prophet who 
announced his mission at Priest Rapids, on the Middle 
Columbia River, dissuaded his numerous followers from 
tilling the ground, alleging as his reason that “it is a sin to 
wound or cut, tear up or scratch our common mother by 
agricultural pursuits ; she will avenge herself on the whites 
and on the Indians following their example by opening her 
bosom and engulfing such malefactors for their misdeeds ”.* 

The Zufiis of New Mexico speak of the Earth Mother Worship of 

(Awztelin Tstta) as the source of all man’s food, both vege- Spades: 
table and animal.* In all the poetic conceptions of the among the 
Zunis one great object is said to be paramount, and that is "s° 
food to support the life of man. Thus they pray, saying, Mexico. 
“ May the rain-makers water the Earth Mother that she may 
be made beautiful to look upon. May the rain-makers 
water the Earth Mother that she may become fruitful and give 
to her children and to all the world the fruits of her being, 
that we may have food in abundance. May the Sun Father 
embrace our Earth Mother that she may become fruitful, 
that food may be bountiful [plentiful], and that our children 
may live the span of life, not die, but sleep to awake with 
their gods,” * 

At a ceremony of the Hopi Indians of Arizona the The Earth. 
Earth-goddess is represented by a bundle of sticks placed on pitts 


1G, B. Grinnell, ‘‘ Tenure of land 4 Mrs. Matilda Coxe Stevenson, the Hopi 
among the Indians”, American Anthro-  ‘*The Zufli Indians”, Twenty-third Indians, 


pologtst, ix. (1907) p. 3, note !. 

2 A, S. Gatschet, Zhe A/amath 
Indians of Southwestern Oregon (Wash- 
ington, 1890), p. xci (Contributions 
to North American Ethnology, vol. ii. 
nears ].), 


8 A, S. Gatschet, of. cé?.'p. xcii. 


Annual Report of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology (Washington, 
1904), pp. 20, 23, 24. 

5 Mrs. Matilda Coxe Stevenson, 
‘‘ Ethnobotany of the Zufi Indians”, 
Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau 
of American Ethnology (Washington, 


1915), Pp. 37. 


Worship of 


the Earth 
among the 
Caribs 

of the 
Antilles. 


Belief of 
the Salivas 
in Mother 
Earth. 


Worship of them the fruits whereby they lived.® 


Mother 
Earth 
(Pacha- 
mama or 
Mama- 
pacha) 
among the 
Peruvian 
Indians. 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA CHAP. 


432 


the floor of the house, and over this bundle the priest kneels 
when he shouts to the Earth-goddess down a hole in the 
floor.’ 

The Caribs of the Antilles said that the Earth was a 
good mother who gave them all things necessary for life.” 
They regarded an earthquake as a sign given them by the 
Earth to dance for the sake of their health. So they used 
to dance for four days and four nights by moonlight, arrayed 
in all their barbaric finery, wearing masks of diverse colours, 
and necklaces, bracelets, belts, and garters loaded with 
little shells, which clashed and clattered as they danced, 
while old women shook rattles and droned a monotonous 
accompaniment.° 

One of the tribes of the Salivas, an Indian nation on 
the Orinoco, claimed to be a daughter of the Earth; they 
said that formerly the earth brought forth men and women 
just as it brings forth briars and thorns nowadays.* The 
Peruvian Indians worshipped the Earth as a goddess, whom 
they named Pachamama or Mother Earth because it yielded 
The worship of 
Mother. Earth (Mamapacha) persisted among the Indians 
of Peru even after their nominal conversion to Christianity. 
The women were particularly devoted to it, especially at 
the time of sowing their fields. They professed to speak 
with the goddess, begging her to grant them a good crop, 
and in order to enforce their petition they poured out 
maize-beer and maize-flour as an offering to her; this they 
did either with their own hands or by the intervention of a 
priest.° When they fell sick, they sometimes thought that 


1 J. W. Fewkes, ‘‘ Hopi Katcinas”,  civile et geographigue de Jl’ Orenogue 


Twenty-first Annual Report of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology (Wash- 
ington, 1903), p. 55. 

2 De Rochefort, Aistozre naturelle 
et morale des Iles Antilles, Seconde 
Edition (Rotterdam, 1665), p. 469. 

3 De la Borde, Relation de l’origine, 
meurs, coustumes, religion, guerres et 
voyages des Caratbes sauvages des Isles 
Antilles de’ ?Amerique, p. 38 (in 
Recuetl de divers Voyages faits en 
Afrique et en Amerique, Paris, 1684). 

4 J. Gumilla, /tstotve naturelle, 


(Avignon, 1758), 1. 175. 

5 Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Com- 
mentaries of the Yncas, vol. i. p. 
49, Markham’s translation (Hakluyt 
Society, London, 1869-1871); J. de 
Acosta, Matural and Moral History of 
the Indies, vol. ii, p. 304, Grimston’s 
translation (Hakluyt Society, London, 
1880). 

6 Pp. J. de Arriaga, La Extirpacion 
de la Idolatria en el Peru (Lima, 1920), 
p. 20. The original edition of this 
work was printed at Lima in 1620, 


XI THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA | 433 


the Earth-mother was angry with them; so to appease 

her wrath they poured out chicha (maize-beer) and burned 
woollen cloths on the spot where they had fallen ill. Women 

in childbed also invoked her help with similar sacrifices. 

Yet we are told that in Peru the worship of the Earth- 
mother, universal and important as it was, mainly rested 

on this popular basis: it had no place in the public ritual 

of the community, though it retained a prominent position 
among the rites performed for the special benefit of the 
Apu-Ccapac-Inca.’. Thus, for example, after sacrificing to Sacrifices 
the Sun, the Thunder, and the Moon, and praying for the ™oprayers 
health, prosperity, and victory of the reigning Inca, the Earth. 
priests also sacrificed to the Earth and prayed to her, 
saying, “O Mother Earth! preserve the Lord Inca, thy son, 
who stands upon thee, in peace and safety”.’ Sacrifices 

to Mother Earth (Pachamama) were equally prominent 
among the sacrifices offered by the Apu-Ccapac-Incas in 
their progresses from place to place: at the principal pro- 
vincial centres on these occasions two llamas were sacrificed 

to the Creator (Pachacamac), two to the Sun, two to the 
Earth, and one to the Thunder’ The village or town of 
Mama (“Mother”), situated on a tributary of the Rimac, 
derives its name from a celebrated sanctuary of the Earth- 
mother, who was there worshipped as a consort of the 
Creator, Pachacamac. The two streams which mingle their 
waters below the sanctuary were known us the breasts of 

the Earth-mother.* 


1 E, J. Payne, Avstory of the New 
World called America, i, (Oxford, 
1892) p. 467. 

2 Chr, de Molina, ‘‘ The Fables and 
Rites of the Yncas”, in Zhe Rites and 
Laws of the -Yncas, translated and 
edited by C, R, Markham (Hakluyt 
Society, London, 1873), p. 56. The 
prayer is somewhat differently translated 
- by E, J. Payne(/.c.). In particular he 
translates Pachamama by “‘ Mother of all 
things’ rather than by Mother Earth, 
on the ground that pacha ‘‘ appears to 
be in its origin a collective term, 
simply denoting many colligated objects 
of thought, and hence may be translated 
‘things’. Employed to designate the 
visible things around the speaker, it is 


VOL. I 


equivalent to ‘world’” (of, cz. p. 456). 
While he admits that the Earth was 
invoked under the name of Pachamama, 
he holds that the true translation of the 
title is ‘* Mother of (all) things”, and 
adds that ‘‘ Mother Earth” would be 
Mamapacha, Yet he notes that the 
form Mamapacha is found occasion- 
ally, but rarely ; it is used for example 
by Arriaga, an excellent authority (see 
above, p. 432). ; 

3 E, J. Payne, Hestory of the New 
World called America, i. 467. 

4 E, J. Payne, Hestory of the New 
World called America, i. 458. The 
worship of Pachamama has left some 
traces of itself among the christianized 
Indians of Bolivia. See R. Paredes, 


2F 


THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA CHAP, 


434 


Worship of The ancient Mexicans worshipped a goddess whom they 
tne Mother variously named Mother of the Gods (Zeteo znnan), Grand- 
eke? mother (Zoc?), or Heart of the Earth (Z/alyolloti).’ In 
the Earth @Xplanation of this last title it was said that when she chose 
among the she made the earth to quake.” Hence modern writers seem 
ancient . . . ° > 
Mexicans, to. be justified in treating her as an Earth-goddess,® though 
she is not definitely so described, so far as I have observed, 
by the original Spanish authors who have described her 
strange and bloody rites. Her festival fell in the eleventh 
month of the Mexican year, which began on the twenty- 
fourth of August and ended on the twelfth of September.’ 
The goddess presided over medicines and medicinal plants, 
which accords well with the character of an Earth-deity. 
Hence she was worshipped especially by physicians, surgeons, 
blood-letters, midwives, women who procured abortion, and 
fortune - tellers of all sorts, such as those who predicted 
the future from grains of maize or drew omens from the - 
inspection of water in a bowl. All these guilds clubbed 
Festival at together once a year to celebrate a great festival in honour of 


vee their patron divinity. For this purpose they bought a woman 
was who was to personate the Boddess at the festival and to be put 
een to death in that character.> She had to be neither very old 
woman, nor very young ; hence a woman of about forty or forty-five 
putto | Was usually selected tor the fatal dignity. The purchase was 
ere made forty days before the festival. Like all the other slaves 
character. Chosen to personate deities she was washed and purified and 
The received the name of the goddess whom she was to represent 
consecra- in life and death. Thus sanctified and consecrated she was 
tion of the : 

victim, | from that day onward shut up in a cell and closely guarded, 


that she should not sin; for the representative of a goddess 
must be sinless. When twenty days were over, they brought 
her forth from her cell, clothed her in the garments appropriate 


Mttos, Supersticiones y Supervivencias History of the New World called 


populares de Bolivia (La Paz, 1920), 
pp. 38 593. 


' B, de Sahagun, Histotre générale 
des choses de la Nouvelle - Espagne, 
traduite et annotée par D. Jourdanet 
et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), pp. 18, 
68, 134; Diego Duran, Astoria de 
las Indias de Nueva Espaita (Mexico, 
1867-1880), ii. 185, 187; E. J. Payne, 


America, i. 464, 468, 

2D. Duran, Astoria de las Indias 
de Nueva Espafia, ii, 187. 

3 E, J. Payne, Hestory of the New 
World called America, i. 464, 468; 
T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archeology 
(London, 1914), pp. 43. 

4 J. de Torquemada, Monarchia 
Indiana (Madrid, 1723), ii. 275. 

5 B, de Sahagun, of, cit. p. 18. 


XI THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA 435 


to the goddess, and set her before the public that all might 
see and adore her as the deity incarnate. From that hour 
the people esteemed her as the Mother of the Gods herself 
and paid her as much reverence as if in truth she had been 
that great divinity. Seven days before the festival they 
gave her in charge to four old medical women or midwives, 
who waited on her and made it their business to keep her 
in a happy and cheerful frame of mind, telling her stories 
and encouraging her to laugh and be merry, for it was an evil 
omen if any woman or man who was to die in the character 
of a god was sad and cast down at the prospect of death.' 
If that happened they thought that many soldiers would 
be slain in war or that many women would die in child- 
bed.» Among other occupations the woman who person- 
ated the Mother of the Gods was given a quantity of aloes 
which in her last days she had to dress, spin, and weave 
into a shirt and petticoats, which were afterwards to figure 
in the ghastly ritual. But the principal mode of diverting 
the thoughts of the unhappy woman from her approaching The 
doom was the dance. Four rows of dancers, carrying ¢"°* 
branches of trees in blossom, danced silently, without 
singing, daily in the afternoon till set of sun. They hardly 
moved their legs or bodies, but lifted and lowered their arms 
in time to the music. These dances went on for eight days. 
Then the medical women, young and old, divided themselves 
into two parties and engaged in a sham fight before the 
woman who acted the part of the Mother of the Gods. In 
the battle the two sides pelted each other with balls made of 
tree-moss, leaves of reeds, portions of cactus, or yellow flowers 
of a certain sort; and the woman who personated the goddess 
had to lead the first attack.* 

These sham-fights lasted four days, and when they were 
over they led the woman who was to die to the market- 
place, escorted by all the medical women, that she might bid 
it a last farewell, for she was to return to it no more. On The 
her return from it she scattered maize wherever she passed {*ewell 0 
by way of good-bye to the market. Thence they reconducted 


1D, Duran, Astoria de las Indias 3D, Duran, Astoria de las Indias 
de Nueva Espaiia, ii. 187 sz. de Nueva Espanta, ii. 188. 
2 B. de Sahagun, of. czt. p. 134. 4°B. de Sahagun, of. crt. pp. 133 59- 


The 


sacrifice. 


Personi- 
fication of 
the goddess 
and her son 
Cinteotl 

by men 
wearing 
the skin of 
the victim. 


Ritual 
observed 
by the 
representa- 
tives of the 
goddess 
and her 
son, 


436 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA CHAP. 


her to her cell, which was hard by the temple where she was 
to die that night. As they went, the medical women and 
the midwives consoled her, saying, “ Be not sorrowful, sweet- 
heart ; this night you will sleep with the king. Therefore 
rejoice.’ They did not let her know that she was about to 
be killed; for her death must be sudden and unexpccted. 
They covered her with the ornaments of the Mother of the 
Gods, and at midnight they led her to the temple where she 
was to die. A great multitude had gathered to see her pass, 
but no one spoke or coughed ; a profound silence reigned. 
Arrived at the place of sacrifice she was hoisted on the back 
of an assistant, whereupon the priest came up, and seizing 
her by the hair adroitly cut off her head, while her streaming 
blood drenched the man who supported the now headless 
body. The skin was immediately stripped from the still 
warm and throbbing corpse, and in it a tall robust young 
man clad himself, thus personating the goddess come to life 
again. Over the woman’s skin he wore the shirt and 
petticoats which she had woven in her last days.’ One of 
the woman’s thighs was flayed separately and the skin carried 
to another temple, where a young man put it on his face as 
a mask and thus personated the maize-god Cinteotl, the son 
of the Mother of the Gods. Besides the mask of skin he wore 
a hood and jacket of feathers.” 

The man who represented the Mother of the Gods and 
was clad in the skin of the dead woman now joined the 
other who personated the son of the goddess-and wore the 
mask of skin on his face. After a curious ritual of flight 
and pursuit, in which the fugitives carried bloody besoms 
of couch-grass and at sight of which all the beholders were 
seized with fear and trembling, the two actors who played 
the parts of the divine Mother and the divine Son repaired 
together very deliberately to the temple of the Mother of 
the Gods, where the woman had been slain in the character 
of the goddess. There the man who represented the Mother 
of the Gods entered the temple. It was still night, but at 


break of day he ascended the steps of the pyramidal temple 


and took up his post on the summit. No sooner did his 


1 B. de Sahagun, of. cit. p. 1343; Mueva Espana, ii. 188. 
D, Duran, Hestorta de las Indias de * B. de Sahagun, of. c7t. p. 135. 


XI THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA 437 


figure appear outlined against the sky than men who had 

been waiting below ran up the staircase at full speed to 
bring him offerings. Some covered-his feet and head with 

white eagle down; others painted his, face red; others 

put on him a short cloak which bore the likeness of an 

eagle embroidered or woven in the stuff; others clad him 

in painted petticoats. Some cut off the heads of quails 

in his presence; others offered him copal. Also they 
decked him out in all the richest ornaments of the goddess 

and set a splendid crown on his head. Then the captives Sacrifice 
who were to die were set in a row before him. He took SOL 
one of them, laid him on his back on the block, cut open 

his breast, and tore out his heart. This he did to a second, 

a third, and a fourth. The rest he left to be butchered by 

the priests.' 

Leaving the sacred shambles the two men who per- The 
sonated the divine Mother and the divine Son then repaired (Peer ® 
to the temple of Cinteotl, preceded by devotees who wore goddess 
ornaments of paper, cotton, and feathers, and escorted on ae 
either side by medical women who sang as they marched, the temple 
while priests led the singing and played on musical instru- Coon 
ments. The heads of the human victims were brought to 
this temple. There a great many old soldiers were waiting, 
and when the procession arrived they took the man -who 
played the part of the divine Son in their midst and ran 
with him at full speed to a certain hill which stood at the 
borders of the enemy’s country. There the divine Son took The | 
from his face the mask made of the skin from the thigh a itt 
of the dead woman and deposited it in a tower or keep of human 
at the frontier. Often the enemy was waiting for them au 
at the spot, a fight ensued, and some were slain, after which 
the survivors returned home.” 

A variety of ceremonies followed in which the repre- The dance 
sentative of the Mother of the Gods played a conspicuous ab 
part, dancing with the medical women in the court of the tive of the 
temple of the Mother of the Gods. The captains and ceaehg 
soldiers who had just been decorated by the King for 
gallantry took part in these dances. They danced silently 


to the tuck of drum, and all were so: festooned that they 
1 B, de Sahagun, of. ct. pp. 135 5g. 2 B. de Sahagun, of. cz/. pp. 136 sg. 


The blood 
of the 
human 
victims 
tasted 

by the 
representa- 
tive of the 
Mother of 
the Gods. 


The skin 
of the 
woman 
who 
personated 
the Mother 
of the Gods 
hung ona 
tower. 


438 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA CHAP. 


looked like living flowers to the admiration of the beholders. 
But the women who saw them dancing in gorgeous array 
wept, saying, “Our sons now so richly bedecked will have 
to march when war is proclaimed. Think you that they 
will return? Perhaps we shall see them no more.” ‘The 
King and all his courtiers were present at these ceremonies. 
The gold on their persons was so plentiful that the courtyard 
shone with a dazzling splendour in the blaze of the sun.’ 

Yet the human representative of the Mother of the Gods 
had to figure in another and grimmer scene than these 
flowery sun-illumined dances. For the blood of the human 
victims slain in sacrifice was brought to him in a vessel 
decked with feathers, and he had to stoop over it, dip his 
finger in the blood, and suck his bloody finger. Then he 
gave a doleful groan, and all who heard it were seized with 
fear and said that the Earth herself felt it and shook. At 
the conclusion of this dismal rite, all the people stooped 
down, took up a little earth on one finger, and ate it. This 
ceremony of eating earth they commonly performed at their 
solemn festivals and in presenting themselves before their 
idols ; they looked on it as a mark of reverence and humility 
towards the gods. After their conversion to Christianity 
they sometimes observed the custom before the images of 
the saints.” 

Finally, a priest descended the staircase of the temple- 
pyramid of the great god Uitzilopochtli, carrying in his 
hand a wooden basket full of white chalk and white feathers, 
which he left at the foot of the steps. Immediately a great 
number of soldiers, who had been waiting and watching, 
raced to the basket, striving who should be the first to reach 
it. There they filled their hands with the contents of the 
basket and ran back to the point from which they had 
started. The man who wore the skin of the dead woman 
and who personated the Mother of the Gods watched them 
plundering the contents of the basket, and when they had 
done he ran after them as if in pursuit, while all the spec- 
tators accompanied his movements with loud cries, and when 
he passed them in his course they spat at him and hurled at 


1 2. de Sahagun, of. cit. pp. 137 59. 
2 D. Diego, Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espanta, pp. 189 sq. 


XI THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA 439 
him whatever they happened to have in their hands. The 
King himself took part in this affray and returned to his 
palace at a run. All did the same, and abandoned the 
representative of the Mother of the Gods with the exception 
of a few who joined-some priests and escorted him to a 
place called Tocititlan, that is, “ Near our Grandmother ”. 
There the representative of the goddess stripped off the 
woman’s skin and hung it on a tower or keep that stood 
on the spot. There it was stretched out with the head up 
and the arms open, in full view of the road. Such was the 
end of the festival of the Mother of the Gods,’ 

The custom of choosing a living woman to represent Meaning of 
a goddess, treating her as the divinity in person, and after- reat 
wards killing her and clothing in her skin a man who there- ing men 
upon figured as the representative of the deity, was by no “*"¢ 


women to 

means confined to the worship of the Mother of the Gods ; personate 

° : ° ° : gods or 

it was a common piece of Aztec ritual, in which men as well coadesses 

as women played the fatal part of gods and came to the andputting 
: 2 ; them to 

same tragic end.” The only probable explanation of such death, 

barbarous rites would scem to be that they were based on 

a belief in the natural mortality of the gods, and were 

intended to prolong the lives of the deities for the good of 

the world by annually killing their human representatives 

and then simulating their resurrection, this pretence of 

resurrection being effected by clothing a living man in the 


skin of the slain representative of the deity. In this way, 


1 B. de Sahagun, of. cit. pp. 138 sg. 
The two fullest accounts of this strange 
festival are those of B. de Sahagun, 
op. cit, pp. 18 sy., 68 sg., 133-139, 
and ID, Duran, of. czt. ii, 185-191. 
The two accounts differ from and 
supplement each other on many points, 
but are not necessarily inconsistent. 
I have combined ‘them in the text, 
following mainly the account of 
Sahagun. A much briefer description 
is given by J. de Torquemada, 
Monarchia Indiana (Madrid, 1723), 
li, 275 sg., which appears to have 
little or no independent value. <A 
short account of the festival, based on 
Torquemada’s, is given by Brasseur 
de Bourbourg, Aistozre des Nations 
civilisées du Mexique et del’ Amérique 


Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), iil. 523- 
525; while a very full one, based 
throughout on Sahagun’s and following 
it closely, is supplied by H, H. Ban- 
croft, Mative Races of the Pacific States 
(London, 1875-1876), ili. 353-359. 
When Bancroft wrote, the second vol- 
ume of Duran’s work, containing his 
description of the festival, had not yet 
been published, E. J. Payne’s brief ac- 
count (A/7story of the New World called 
America, i. 470) is drawn from Duran 
alone. I have described the festival 
elsewhere. See Zhe Golden Bough, 
Part VI. Zhe Scapegoat, pp. 288-291. 


2 For examples see Zhe Golden 
Bough, Part VI. Zhe Scapegoat, pp. 
275 599. 


440 THE WORSHIP OF EARTH IN AMERICA CH. XI 


to take the particular instance with which we are here con- 
cerned, the Mexicans may have imagined that they annually 
endowed with a fresh lease of life the important FEarth- 
goddess, the Mother of the Gods. But it is not clear why 
apparently a man was always chosen to personate a goddess 
come to life again by wearing the bloody skin of the woman 
who had died in the character of the divinity; rather we 
should expect that, as one woman acted the divine death, so 
another woman should act the divine resurrection. 


CP Atr Tele Re xl 


THE WORSHIP “OF THE SUN AMONG THE ARYAN 
PEOPLES OF ANTIQUITY 


§1. The Worship of the Sun in general 


As one of the most conspicuous and powerful objects in the 
physical world the sun has naturally attracted the attention 
and obtained the homage of many races, who have personi- 
fied and worshipped it as a god. Yet the worship of the 
sun has been by no means so widely diffused among primi- 
tive peoples as, on purely abstract grounds, we might at first 
sight be tempted to suppose. If we were to draw a map of 
the world showing in colour the regions where sun-worship 
is known to have prevailed, we might be surprised at the 
many large blanks in the chart, blanks which would prob- 
ably be particularly numerous and extensive in countries 
occupied by the most backward races. In Africa, for 
example, while sun-worship was a most important element 
in the religion of ancient Egypt, it is on the whole con- 
spicuously absent among the black races of that continent, 
though we have noted some evidence of its occurrence 
in many tribes of Northern Nigeria and in certain tribes 
of East Africa. The same paucity of sun-worship, or at 
all events of’ any trustworthy evidence of its existence, 
is characteristic of the indigenous Australian, Melanesian,” 


1 See above, p. 315, with the refer- 
ences. 

2 Speaking of the Melanesian re- 
ligion, Dr. Codrington, our highest 
authority on the subject, observes that 
‘*there is no appearance of a belief 
that any heavenly bodies are living 


441 


beings ; in the Banks Islands the Sun 
and Moon are thought to be rocks or 
islands” (Zhe Melanesians, Oxford, 
1891, p. 348). In San Cristoval, one 
of the Solomon Islands, Mr. C, E. Fox 
has recently recorded some connexions 
supposed to exist between the clan of 


The 
worship of 
the Sun not 
so widely 
diffused 

as is 
commonly 
supposed. 


A. Bastian 
on the 
rarity 

of Sun- 
worship. 


Sun- 
worship 
in ancient 
Egypt, 
Mexico, 
and Peru. 


442 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG AR VAN PREOMLES CHAR, 


Polynesian,' and Micronesian races, who together occupy a 
considerable portion of the globe. On the limited diffusion 
of this form of religion in the world the most learned and 
far-travelled of ethnologists, Adolf Bastian, long ago re- 
marked that sun-worship, which people used to go sniffing 
about to discover everywhere, is found on the contrary 
only in very exceptional regions, or on lofty table-lands 
of equatorial latitude. Subsequent research has confirmed 
this weighty judgment. Whatever the reason may be, a 
solar religion appears to flourish best among nations which 
have attained to a certain degree of civilization, such as the 
ancient Egyptians and the Indians of Mexico and Peru at’ 
the time when they were discovered by the Spaniards. 
Perhaps the regular and peaceful movement of the sun in the 
heavens, by lacking the element of the sudden, the terrible, 
and the unforeseen, disqualifies it for being an object of 
interest to the simple savage, whose attention is excited and 
whose emotions are stirred rather by those events which 


the chiefs and the sun, and in these 
connexions he finds ‘‘ many traces of 
sun-worship”; but, so far as I have 
observed, he has reported no case of 
actual sun-worship, that is, of prayer 
and sacrifice offered to the great 
Juminary. See C. F. Fox, Zhe Thresh- 
old of the Pacific (London, 1924), pp. 
239 5g. 363. 

1 Speaking of the Tahitians, a typical 
Polynesian people, William Ellis, who 
knew them well at a time when they 
were still but little modified by Euro- 
pean influence, remarked, ‘‘I am not 
aware that they rendered divine homage 
either to the sun or moon ” (Polyneszan 
Researches, Second Edition, London, 
1832-1836, iii. 171) Mr, Elsdon 
Best, a high authority on Maori 
religion and lore, believes that a 
worship of the sun formerly existed 
in Polynesia, though he admits that 
‘there is but little direct evidence” of 
its former existence, and indeed that 
the Maoris ‘‘ did not practise a direct 
worship of the sun”, His theory of a 
former prevalence of sun-worship in 
Polynesia is based on his view of the 
god Tane, whom he interprets as a 
personification of the sun. But this 


interpretation seems not to be generally 
accepted by the Maoris; for Mr. Best 
tells us that ‘‘ apparently the people on 
the whole were not aware that Tane 
represents the sun, and it was only 
when we gained a closer knowledge of 
native myths that we recognised in him 
a personified form of the sun... . 
Fornander, of. Hawaii, gave many 
proofs in his work on the Polynesian 
race that T'ane represents the sun, yet 
he makes in that work the statement 
that solar worship had faded from the 
Polynesian mind since the race entered 
the Pacific.” See Elsdon Best, Zhe 
Maori (Wellington, N.Z., 1924), i. 
275 sg. The late Dr. Rivers, indeed, 
propounded a far-reaching theory of a 
secret sun-worship in the Pacific, but 
the theory rested on the extremely 
doubtful evidence of a single writer (J. 
A. Moerenhout). See 7he Belief in 
Immortality and the Worship of the 
Dead, ii. 119, 266, note 4, 286, note © 
If the Polynesians ever had a secret 
worship of the sun, the secret was so 
well kept that it has never leaked out. 

2 Adolf Bastian, Dze Voelker des 
Oestlichen Asien, -iv. (Jena, 1868) p. 
175: 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 443 


occur at irregular intervals, which threaten his existence, and 
which no means at his disposal enable him to predict. <A 
higher degree of intelligence and reflection is needed to ask 
whence comes the marvellous uniformity of those operations 
of nature whereof the courses of the heavenly bodies are 
at once the most easily observable and the most splendid 
examples. 


§ 2. Lhe Worship of the Sux among the Vedic Indians 


Among peoples of the Aryan stock solar worship has not The Sun 
been unknown, but the Sun has never occupied the leading PRET 
place in their pantheon. The Indians of the Vedic age Vedic 
personified and to some extent worshipped the sun under '™“'*"s 


various names, of which the chief were Surya and Savitri or Hip 
Savitar It is under these two different appellations that the 01" 2" 
sun is chiefly celebrated in the Azg-veda, though it is sometimes Savitar. 
difficult to perceive why in any particular case the one name 
_should be employed rather than the other. Yet different 

sets of hymns are devoted to the worship of the deity under 

each of these names, and the epithets applied to him in 

each of these characters are for the most part distinct. In 

a few passages both these names, and occasionally certain 
others, appear to be applied to the solar divinity indis- 
criminately ; but in most cases the distinction between them 

is at least nominally preserved.’ 

Of the two solar deities, Surya and Savitri or Savitar, the Surya 
former is the more concrete; he remains closer to the physical alee “ie 
object which he personifies; his connexion with the great the two, 
luminary is never lost sight of. His name indeed of Surya ae 
designates the solar orb; hence in many passages it is 
impossible to say whether the word denotes the physical 
sun simply or the personification of it as a god.2 The diffi- 
culty of discriminating the physical from the divine aspect of 


Surya is all the greater, because in his case the personification 


1 A. Barth, Zhe Religions of India pp. 40-50; H. D. Griswold, Zhe 
(London, 1882), pp. 20, 165 sg.3; J. Religion of the Rigveda (London, etc., 
Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, V.* 1923), pp. 266-278. 

(London, 1884) pp. 155 sgg.; A. A. 2 J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, 
Macdonell, Vedic Alythology (Strass- V.3 155 sg., 

burg, 1897), pp. 30-35 ; E. W. Hopkins, 3 A.A. Macdonell, Vedic ALytholosy, 
The Religions of /ndia (London, 1896), — p. 30. 


Surya the 
son of 
Dyaus and 
the 
husband 
or son of 
the Dawn 
(Ushas). 


444 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 


is never carried far; mythical fancy has hardly played 
about him; indeed, the only myth of which he is the 
subject relates how the great god Indra vanquished him!’ 
and carried off one of the wheels of his chariot.* The 
allusion may be to the obscuration of the sun by a thunder- 
cloud or to a solar eclipse. However, Surya is so far 
personified that, like other sun-gods, he is described as 
driving across the sky in a car drawn cither by one or 
several or seven fleet and ruddy horses or mares.* He is 
said to be the son of the great sky-god Dyaus.*’ The Dawn 
(Ushas) is spoken of as his wife in one passage,’ while in 
another she is said to have brought him forth.° Thus in the 
fancy of the Vedic poct the two great natural phenomena, 
the Sun and the Dawn, were not yet crystallized into 
sharply defined figures, but floated vaguely in a golden or 
rosy haze. The eye of Surya is mentioned several times 
in the hymns, but he is himself equally often called the eye 
of Mitra and Varuna or of Agni (the Fire-god).’ In the 
A tharva-veda he is called the Lord of Eyes, and is said to 
be the one eye of created beings, and to see beyond the 
sky, the earth, and the waters. He is described as far- 
seeing, all-seeing, the spy of the whole world, he who 
beholds all beings and the good and bad deeds of mortals. 
He is the preserver and soul of all things, both stationary 
and moving, the vivifier of men and common to them all. 
Enlivened by him men pursue their ends and perform their 
work.’ He shines for all the world, for men and gods, 
He dispels the darkness with his light. He rolls up the 
darkness as a skin. His beams throw off the darkness 
as a skin into the waters. He triumphs over beings of 
darkness and witches.? It is said that “truth is the 
base that bears the earth; by Surya are the heavens 
sustained ”.”° 

1 Rig-veda, x. 43. 5. 6 Rig-veda, vii. 78. 3. 

CE RLDWEAA, in LT 5 dy IVs oe, ay tk Vs 7 A, A, Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 


30. 4, v. 29. 10; A. A. Macdonell, p. 30; J. Muir, Original Sanskrit 
Vedic. Mythology, p. 31-3 J. Muir, Zexts, V.2 157. 


Original Sanskrit Texts, V.3 159. 8 J. Muir, Oréginal Sanskrit Texts, 
SE ya Muir, sofl techy Vi 150. ona. OPV oad Soe 

Macdonell, Vedic Alythology, p. 30. 9 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
4 Rig-veda, x. 37. 1: Datsis ; 


5 Rig-veda, vil. 75. 5. 10 Rig-veda, x. 85. 1. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 445 


Yet elsewhere Surya is occasionally spoken of as an Surya 
inanimate object, as a gem of the sky, a variegated stone O™l™s 
y 5 Ys § spoken of 


placed in the midst of heaven, a brilliant ease which as an 
Mitra and Varuna conceal with cloud and rain.’ Hence he pe 
is said to have been produced, or caused to shine or to rise, 
or to have his path prepared by various gods. Thus we 
are told that Indra generated him, caused him to shine, or 
raised him to heaven ; that Indra-Soma brought him up with 
light ; that Soma placed light in the Sun, caused him to 
shine, or raised him in heaven; that Agni (the Fire-god) 
established the brightness of the sun on high, and made him 
ascend to heaven; that Dhatri, the creator, fashioned the 
sun as well as the moon. In these and other passages 
relating to the creation of the sun the notion of the simple 
luminary doubtless predominates.» The ancient hymns, 
composed perhaps before the descent of the Aryans into the 
sweltering plains of Northern India, contain only two or 
three allusions to the sun’s burning heat; in the Azg-veda 
the luminary is not a maleficent power; for that aspect of 
his nature we must turn to the later Atharva-veda and the 
literature of the Brahmanas.* 

Ten entire hymns of the Azg-veda may be said to be Hymn to 
devoted to the celebration of the Sun under the name of 37% 
Surya* The following may serve as specimens. 


‘“* Hts heralds bear him up aloft, the god who knoweth all that lives, 
Surya, that all may look on him, 
The constellations pass away, like thieves, together with their beams, 
Before the all-beholding Sun. 
fis herald rays are seen afar refulgent oer the world of men, 
Like flames of fire that burn and blaze, 
Swift and all beautiful art thou, O Surya, maker of the light, 
Mluming all the radiant realm. 
Thou goest to the host of gods, thou comest hither to mankind, 
flither all light to be beheld. 
With that same eye wherewith thou look’st, O purifying Varuna, 
Upon the busy race of men, 
Traversing sky and wide mid-air, thou metest with thy beams our 

_ days, 

Sun, seeing all things that have birth, 


1 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 3 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 


p.13i. Porcde ’ 
2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 4 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mytho- 


p31. logy, Pp. 30. 


Prayer to 
the Sun for 
the cure of 
jaundice. 


Charm for 
the cure of 
jaundice. 


446 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Ciar. 


Seven bay steeds harnessed to thy car bear thee, O thou far-seeing 
one, 

God, Surya, with the radiant hair. .. . 

Looking upon the loftier light above the darkness we have come 

To Surya, god among the gods, the light that is most excellent. 

Rising this day, O rich in friends, ascending to the loftier heaven, 

Surya, remove my heart’s disease, take from me this my yellow hue. 

To parrots and to starlings let us give away my yellowness, 

Or this my yellowness let us transfer to Haritdla trees.” ' 


In these last lines the poet prays the Sun to remove his 
jaundice on the principle of homceopathic magic, in accord- 
ance with which the yellowness of the disease can be trans- 
ferred to yellow objects, such as the sun and yellow parrots. 
Similar cures for jaundice were known to the ancient Greeks 
and Romans and are not unknown in modern Europe.” 
That this was indeed the notion which prompted the old 
Vedic prayer to the Sun is certain; for the same cure is 
recorded in unambiguous terms as a simple charm in the 
Atharva-veda. The charm is as follows: 


‘Up to the sun shall go thy heart-ache and thy jaundice: in the colour 
of the red bull do we envelop thee / 

‘* We envelop thee in red tints, unto long life. May this person go 
unscathed, and be free of yellow colour / | 

‘“‘ The cows whose divinity is Rohini, they who, moreover, are themselves. 
red (rohinih)—zn their every form and every strength we do 
envelop thee. 

“Into the parrots, tnto the thrush do we put thy jaundice, and, 
furthermore, into the yellow wagtail (haridravas) do we put 
thy jaundice.” 3 


In this charm the word (Aéridrava) translated “ yellow 
wagtail” occurs in the hymn of the Azg-veda quoted above, 
where it is translated “ Haritala trees”. The translator (Mr. 
R. T. H. Griffith) in a note says that the word hdérizdrava 
is understood by the commentator Sayana to mean a 
haritdla tree, but that there seems to be no tree of that 
name. He further remarks that sarztd/a usually signifies 
yellow orpiment, which is a yellow crystalline metal, and 

1 Rig-veda, i. 50; Hymns of the i. 79 sqq. 
Rigveda, translated with a_ popular 3 Atharva-veda, i. 22 (Sacred Books 
commentary by R. T. H. Griffith of the East, vol. xlii., //ymmns of the 
(Benares, 1889-1892), vol. i. pp. 885g. Atharva-veda, translated by M. Bloom- 


* The Golden Bough, Part I. The field, Oxford, 1897, pp. 7 sy., with the 
Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, commentary, pp. 263-265). 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 447 


that Adridrava generally means a yellow vegetable powder ; 
and he adds that “the word A#dridrava is explained in the 
Petersburg Lexicon as a certain yellow bird”. In any case 
the essential point is that the objects to which the jaundice 
is to be transferred must be either yellow or red; for on 
the principles of homoeopathic magic or medicine yellow 
objects naturally absorb the yellow disease, while red objects 
are similarly calculated to infuse into the sallow patient 
the rosy hue of health. To this day the Mehtars of the 
Central Provinces of India hang the flesh of a yellow snake 
or of a fish with yellowish scales about the neck of a child 
who is suffering from jaundice; or they catch a small frog 
alive, tie it up in a yellow cloth, and hang it by a blue 
thread till it dies on the neck of the little sufferer. Of 
course the yellow snake, the yellow fish, and the yellow 
cloth all possess the valuable property of absorbing the 
jaundice and thereby relieving the patient.’ On _ similar 
grounds anybody can see for himself that the Sun is a 
natural recipient of the jaundice. 
A higher note is struck by another Vedic poet in a Hymn to 

hymn addressed to Surya the sun: Surya the 


Sun. 


“ Do homage unto Varuna’s and Mitra’s eye: offer this solemn worship 
to the mighty god, 

“Who seeth far away, the ensign, born of gods. Sing praises unto 
Surya, to the son of Dyaus. 

“May this my truthful speech guard me on every side, wherever heaven 
and earth and days are spread abroad. 

“ All else that ts in motion finds a place of rest: the waters ever flow 
and ever mounts the sun... . 

“O Surya, with the light whereby thou scatterest gloom, and with thy 
ray impellest every moving thing, 

“ Keep far from us all feeble, worthless sacrifice, and drive away disease 
and every evil dream. 

“ Sent forth thou guardest well the path of every man, and in thy 
wonted way arisest free from wrath. 

“ When, Surya, we address our prayers to thee to-day, may the gods 
favour this our purpose and desire. 

“ This invocation, these our words may Heaven and Earth, and Indra 
and the Waters and the Maruts hear. 

“ Neer may we suffer want in presence of the Sun, and, living happy 
lives, may we attain old age. 


1 R. V. Russell, 7ribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India (London, 
1916), iv. 224. 


The Vedic 
Sun-god 
Savitri or 
Savitar, 


The Golden 
God. 


448 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuav. 


“Cheerful in spirit, evermore, and keen of sight, with store of children, 
Jree from sickness and from sin, 

“ Tong-living, may we look, O Surya, upon thee uprising day by day, 
thou who art rich tn friends / . 

“ Surya, may we live long and look upon thee still, thee,.O far-seeing 
one, bringing the glorious light, 

“ The radiant god, the spring of joy to every eye, as thou art 
mounting up oer the high shining flood. 

“ Thou by whose lustre all the world comes forth, and by thy beams ~ 
again returns unto tts rest, 

“O Surya with the golden hair, ascend for us day after day, still 
bringing purer innocence. 

* Bless us with shine, bless us with perfect daylight, bless us with cold, 
with fervent heat and lustre. 

** Bestow on us, O Surya, varied riches, to bless us in our home, and 
when we travel.” } 


The other Vedic personification of the sun is Savitri or 
Savitar, who, as we have seen, is sometimes distinguished 
from and sometimes identified with Surya. In him the 
personal element is more prominent and the _ physical 
element less conspicuous than in his divine colleague or 
double.” The name appears to be derived from a root 
meaning to stimulate, arouse, vivify, and in nearly half its 
occurrences it is accompanied by the noun deva, “god”, so 
that it would seem not to have lost its adjectival force. 
Hence we may conclude that Savitri or Savitar was 
originally an epithet applied to the sun as the great 
stimulator of life and motion in the world.® He is 
celebrated in eleven whole hymns of the Azg-veda as well 
as in parts of others. Above all other deities, he is the 
golden god: the poets describe him as golden-eyed, golden- 
handed, and golden-tongued: he puts on golden or tawny 
mail: he mounts a golden car with a golden pole drawn by 
two radiant steeds, or by two or more brown, white-footed 


‘1 Riy-veda, x. 37 (Hymns of the 
Rigveda, translated by R. T. H. Griffith, 
vol. iv. pp. 176 s9.). 

2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
p. 34. The god’s name is spelled 
Savitr by Macdonell, Savzty? by A. 
Barth (Religions of India, p. 20) and 
J. Muir (Orzginal Sanskrit Texts, V.3 


162), and Savitar by R. T. H. Griffith. 


(Hymns of the Rigveda, vol. i. p. 64), 


A. Kaegi (Der Rigveda*, Leipzig, 
1881, p. 40), E. W. Hopkins( Religions 
of India, p. 46), and H. ‘D, Griswold 
(Zhe Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 
270 sqq.). 


3 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
p- 34; A. Kaegi, Der Rigveda, p. 79; 
H. D. Griswold, Zhe Religion of the 
Rigveda, pp. 275-277. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 449 


horses.. Mighty golden splendour is his and his alone. 
He illumines the air, the earth, the world, and the vault of 
heaven. He lifts up his strong golden arms, wherewith he 
blesses and arouses all beings: his arms extend even to the 
ends of the earth. He rides in his golden car, beholding all 
creatures both on an upward and on a downward path. 
He shines after the path of the dawn. He has measured 
out the earthly spaces: he goes to the three bright realms 
of heaven and is united with the rays of the sun. His 
ancient paths in the sky are dustless and easy to traverse. 
He supports the whole world. He fixed the earth with 
bonds and made firm the sky in the rafterless space of air. 
He bestows length of days on man and immortality on the 
gods. He drives away bad spirits and sorcerers; he is 
implored to deliver men from evil dreams and sin, and to 
waft the parting soul to the land where dwell the righteous 
who have gone before.” 

According to the commentator Sayana, the sun is called 
Savitri before his rising, but from his rising to his setting 
his name is Surya. Yet Savitri is sometimes spoken of as 
lulling to sleep ; hence he would seem to be associated with 
the evening as well as with the morning. Indeed, in one 
hymn he is extolled as the setting sun, and there are 
indications that most of the hymns addressed to him are 
designed for either a morning or an evening sacrifice. He is 
said to lull to rest all two-footed and four-footed beings: he 
unyokes his steeds in the gloaming: he brings the wanderer 
to rest: at his command the night comes on: the weaver 
rolls up her web, and the man of skill lays down his work 
unfinished: then every bird seeks his nest and every beast 
his lodging.’ 

Besides these two great personifications of the sun, 
mythologists sometimes distinguish three other solar deities 


1 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, Hopkins, Religions of Jndia, pp. 

p. 32; J. Muir, Original Sanskrit 46-50. 
Texts VO 62; He D, Griswold, 3 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
The Religion of the Rigveda, p. pp. 33 sg.; H. D. Griswold, Zhe 
273 Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 273 5g. 


The evening hymn, as we may call it, 

2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, to the Sun-god Savitri is Rig-veda, ii. 

pp. 32 sg. ; compare J. Muir, Ovigzzal 38. Inthe text I have borrowed some 
Sanskrit Texts, V.2 162-164; E. W. touches from it. 


VOL. I | 2G 


Evening 
hymn to 
Savitri, the 
Sun-god. 


Mitra 
sometimes 


regarded as 


another 
solar deity 
inthe Vedic 
pantheon. 


450 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cnapr. 


Buthis in the Vedic pantheon, namely Mitra, Pushan, and Vishnu.’ 


solar 
character 


Of all the solar divinities of the Rzg-veda the oldest perhaps 


isdim and jg Mitra, the “Friend”, the personification of the sun’s 


doubtful, 


beneficent agency. Surviving from an earlier period, his 


individuality is almost merged in that of the great god 
Varuna, with whom he is nearly always invoked. Indeed, 
only a single hymn of the Azg-veda is addressed to him 


alone.” 


The great antiquity of Mitra is vouched for by the 


occurrence of his name under the form Mithra in the old 
Persian pantheon, which seems to show that he dates from 
a period before the separation of the Indian and Iranian 
peoples.» However, it must be admitted that the solar 


character of Mitra is but 


dimly adumbrated in the 


Rig-veda; indeed, some high authorities believe that he, 
like his Iranian counterpart Mithra, was originally a 
personification of the celestial light rather than of the sun, 
though in later times, like Mithra, he came to be identified 
with the great luminary.* Others think that the primary 
character of Mitra was moral rather than physical ; according 
to them, he personified the virtue of good faith and strict 
regard for the sanctity of compacts.® 


Pushan, Another Vedic deity in whom mythologists detect a 
another personification of the solar orb is Pushan, the “ Prosperer ” 
solar deity 
ofthe Vedic 


pantheon, 1 A. <A. Macdonell, ‘‘ Sanskrit 
Literature”, Zhe Imperial Gazetteer 
of India, vol. ii. (Oxford, 1909) pp. 
213 59. 

2 A. <A. Macdonell, ‘‘ Sanskrit 
Literature”, Zhe Imperial Gazetteer 
of India, ‘vol. ii. (Oxford, 1909), p 
213; 2a., Vedic Mythology, p. 29. For 
the hymn to Mitra, see zg-veda, iii. 
59. On Mitra as a Sun-god, see 
H. Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, pp. 
185 sgg.; L. von Schroeder, Arische 
Religion, 1. Einleitung. Der altarische 
Himmelsgott (Leipzig, 1923),. pp 
367 sgq. (who rejects the view, which 
he formerly accepted, that Mitra was 
originally a Sun-god); H. D. Griswold, 
The Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 114- 
Meade. 

3 F. Spiegel, Zrdnische Alterthums- 
kunde (Leipzig, 1871-1878), ii. 86; 
J. Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman 
(Paris, 1877), pp. 67 sg.3; J. Muir, 


Original Sanskrit Texts, V.371;E. W. 
Hopkins, 7he Religions of India, pp. 
57 sg.; Franz Cumont, 7extes et Monu- 
ments figurés relatifs aux Mysteres 
de Mithra (Bruxelles, 1896-1899, i. 
223 sg.; L. von Schroeder, Artsche 
Religion, \, Einlettung. Der altarische 
Himmelsgott, pp. 367 sgg.; H. D. 
Griswold, Zhe Religion of the Rig. 
pena, Pp. 114 sgg. 

‘ This is the view of Fr. Spiegel 
(EZrdnische Allerthumshunde, ii, 77 
$qq.), A. Barth (The Religions of India, 
p- 19), J. Darmesteter (Ormazd et. 
Ahriman, pp. 62 s¢qg., 72 sq.), and F. 
Cumont (7extes e¢ Monuments figurés 
relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra, i. 
223 599.). 

5 L. von Schroeder, Avische Religion, 
I. Linleitung. Der altarische Himmels- 
gott, pp. 372 sg.; H. D. Griswold, 
The Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 
116 sg. 


XII WORSHIP Of SUN AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 451 


He is said to exhibit the genial aspect of the sun, manifested 
chiefly as a pastoral deity, the protector and multiplier of 
cattle. In this respect he reminds us of the Greek Sun-god 
Helios, who kept herds of kine, as Ulysses and his com- 
panions learned to their cost. But the individuality of 
Pushan is vague and his human traits are scanty. He 
is called the best charioteer: his car is drawn by goats 
instead of horses; and he subsists on a low diet of gruel. 
As a cowherd he carries an ox-goad: he follows and protects 
the cattle: he preserves them from falling into a pit, brings 
them home unhurt, seeks and drives back the lost. He 
beholds all creatures clearly, and he is the lord of all things, 
both moving and stationary. He is said to have been the 
wooer of his mother or the lover of his sister: the gods gave 
him in marriage to the sun-maiden Surya. The epithet 
“glowing” is often applied to him. Born on the far path 
of heaven and the far path of earth, he goes to and returns 
from both the beloved abodes, which well he knows. Hence 
he conducts the dead on the path to the fathers who have 
gone before ; and, knowing the paths, he is a guardian of 
roads, and is besought to protect the wayfarer from the 
perils of wolves and robbers.” 

In all this there is not much to show that Pushan 
personifies any natural phenomenon. However, we are told 
that a large number of passages point to a connexion 
between him and the sun. One Indian commentator, Yaska, 
explains Pushan to be “the sun, the preserver of all beings”, 
and in post-Vedic literature Pushan occasionally occurs as a 
name of the sun.” 

The last of the solar deitiés in Vedic literature is Vishnu. Vishnu, 
Though less often invoked than the others, he is historically Sere 
by far the most important, since he developed into one of ofthe Vedic 
the three persons of the Hindoo trinity. In the Rig-veda Ree 
his most characteristic trait is that he takes three strides, 


1 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, ligions of India, pp. 50 sqg.; WI. D. 
pp. 35-373; @@., ‘Sanskrit Literature”, Griswold, 7he Religion of the Rigveda, 
The Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol.ii. pp. 278-282. As to the Greek Sun- 
(Oxford, 1909), p. 214; A. Barth, god Helios and his cattle, see below, 
The Religions of India, p. 20; J. pp. 466 sgg. 

Muir, Oviginal Sanskrit Texts, V.3 
171 sgg.; A. Kaegi, Der Rigveda’, 2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
Dine 75g. hk W. Hopkins; .7A4e Ne- (> pr'37. 


Ushas, the 
Dawn. 


Her 
mythical 
relation- 
ship to 
Night 
and the 
Sun. 


452 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES chap, 


which are often referred to in the hymns. Scholars are 
almost unanimous in interpreting the three strides with 
reference to the course of the sun, but they differ as to the 
application of the myth, some understanding the three steps 
to mean the rising, culminating, and setting of the sun, 
while others regard them as descriptive of the sun’s passage 
through the three realms of the universe. The former view 
is favoured by most European scholars; the latter is sup- 
ported by a practically unbroken tradition in India from 
the later Vedic period onward. Whichever interpretation 
be adopted, the highest step of Vishnu is heaven, where the 
gods and the fathers dwell. In several passages he is said 
to have taken his three steps for the benefit of mankind. 
According to a myth of the Brakmanas, Vishnu rescued the 
earth for man from the demons by taking his three strides 
after that he had assumed the form of a dwarf. In this we 
have a transition to the later mythology, in which Vishnu’s 
benevolent character is further developed in the doctrine 

of Avatars or incarnations for the good of humanity.’ 
Closely connected with the solar gods is Ushas, the 
Dawn. Her name, derived from the root vas, “to shine”, 
means. the dawn, and is etymologically identical with the 
Latin aurora and the Greek 2s, both signifying “dawn”. 
Hence, conceived as a goddess, she always betrays her 
physical basis through a transparent veil of mythical fancy. 
In her graceful figure the personification is but slight: in 
addressing her the poet never forgets the radiant glory and 
the gorgeous hues of the sky at break of day.’ She is said 
to have been born in the sky, and is constantly called the 
daughter of heaven. She is the sister, or the elder sister, 
of Night, and the names of Dawn and Night are often 
conjoined as a dual compound. She is said to have opened 
the paths for Surya, the Sun-god, to travel in: she shines 
with the light of the sun. In one passage the Sun-god 
Surya is spoken of as following her as a young man follows 
1 A.A Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 282-285. 


Pp. 37-393 2d., ‘<Sanskrit Literature”, 2 A.A, Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
The Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. ii. Pp. 49. 

(Oxford, 1909), p. 214. Compare E. 
W. Hopkins, 7he Religzons of India, 3 A, A. Macdonell, Vedic ALythology, 
pp. 56 sg.; A. Kaegi, Der Rigveda®, p. 46; H. D. Griswold, The Religion 
pp. 78 sg.; H. D. Griswold, Zhe of the Rigveda, p. 244. 


XI WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG VEDIC INDIANS 453 


a maiden, but in another she is described as the wife of 
Surya, and elsewhere the Dawns are called the wives of the 
Sun ; for recollecting the multitude of dawns that have suc- 
ceeded each other, the poet often speaks of Dawn in the 
plural. Thus, as followed in space by the sun, the Dawn 
is conceived of as his spouse or mistress ; but as preceding 
the sun in time she is occasionally thought of as his mother." 
Born anew every morning, she is always young; yet at the 
same time she is old, nay immortal ; she wears out the lives 
of the generations of men, which vanish away one after 
another, while she continues undecaying.” As she shone 
in former days, so she shines now and will shine in days 
to come, never ageing, immortal. Arraying herself in gay 
attire, like a dancer, she displays her bosom: like a maiden 
decked by her mother, she shows her form. Effulgent in 
peerless beauty, she withholds her radiance from neither 
small nor great: rising resplendent as from a bath, revealing 
her charms, she comes with light, driving the shadows away. 
She dispels the darkness: she removes the black robe of 
night: she wards off evil spirits and evil dreams. She 
discloses the treasures which the shadows of night had 
concealed: she distributes them bountifully. When she 
awakes, she illumines the utmost borders of the sky: she 
opens the gates of heaven: she unbars the doors of darkness 
as the cows throw open their stall: her radiant beams 
appear like herds of cattle. The ruddy beams fly up: the 
ruddy cows yoke themselves: the ruddy Dawns weave their 
web of light as of old. Thus Dawn comes to be called 
Mother of Kine.* She is borne on a shining chariot: she 
is said to arrive on a hundred chariots. She is drawn by 
ruddy horses or by ruddy cows or bulls. . Both the horses and 
the cows probably represent the red rays of morning, though 
the cows are often explained as the rosy clouds of daybreak.’ 


1 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
p. 48; J. Muir, Origenal Sanskrit 
Texts, V.* 190 sq. 

2 J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, 
Vo2orgs syoht.s2D, ..Griswold, Zhe 
Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 249 sq. 


3 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic ALythology, 
pp. 46 sg.; U1. D. Griswold, Zhe 


Religion of the Rig-veda, p. 247. 

4 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, 
p. 47; J. Muir, Original Sanskrit 
Texts, V.3194. As to Dawn (Ushas), 
see also A. Kaegi, Der Rigveda*, pp. 
73-76; J. W. Hopkins, Zhe Religzoms 
of India, pp. 73-80; H. D. Griswold, 
The Religion of the Rigveda, pp. 
244-254. ; : 


The chariot 
of Dawn. | 


Hymn to 


the Dawn. 


454 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Char. 


Among the many hymns specially dedicated to Ushas 
or the Dawn,’ it will suffice to quote one: its pensive 
beauty needs no words to commend it to the attention of 
the reader : 


“ This light ts come, amtd all lights the fatrest; born is the brillant, 
Sar-extending brightness. 

“Night, sent away jor Savitars uprising, hath yielded up a birth-place 
for the morning. 

“ The fatr, the bright 7s come with her white offspring; to her the dark 
one hath resigned her dwelling. 

“ Akin, immortal, following each other, changing their colours both the 
heavens move onward. 

“Common, unending ts the sisters pathway, taught by the gods, 
alternately they travel. 

“ Fair-formed, of different hues and yet one-minded, Night and Dawn 
clash not, netther do they tarry. 

“ Bright leader of glad sounds, our eyes behold her, splendid tn hue she 
hath unclosed the portals. 

“ She, stirring up the world, hath shown us riches: Dawn hath 
awakened every living creature, 

“Rich Dawn, she sets afoot the cotled-up sleeper, one for enjoyment, one 
Jor wealth or worship, 

“ Those who saw little for extended vision; all living creatures hath the 
Dawn awakened. 

““ One to high sway, one to exalted glory, one to pursue his gain, and one 
his labour ; 

‘All to regard their different vocations, all moving creatures hath the 
Dawn awakened. 

“ We see her there, the child of Heaven, apparent, the young maid 
flushing in her shining raiment. : 

“* Thou sovran lady of all earthly treasure, flush on us here, auspicious 
Dawn, this morning. 

“* She, first of endless morns to come hereafter, follows the roy of morns 
that have departed. 


—“ Dawn, at her rising, urges forth the living: him who ts dead she 


wakes not from hts slumber... . 

“ How lony a time, and they shall be together,—dawns that have shone 
and dawns to shine hereafter ? 

“ She yearns for former dawns with eager longing, and goes forth gladly 
shining with the others. 

‘“*Gone are the men who in the days before us looked on the rising of 
the earlier morning. 

“ We, we the living, now behold her brightness, and they come nigh 
who shall hereafter seé her. 


1 Rig-veda, i. hymns 48, 49, 92, 64, 65; vii. hymns 75, 76, 77, 78, 
113, 1243; iii, hymn 61; iv. hymns 79, 80, 81; x. hymn 172. 
51, 52; v. hymns 79, 80; vi. hymns 


x1 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT PERSIANS 455 


‘* Foe-chaser, born of Law, and Law’s protector, joy-giver, maker of all 
pleasant votces, 


“ Auspicious, bringing Sood for gods’ enjoyment, shine on us here, as best, 
O Dawn, this morning. 

“ From days eternal hath iat: shone, the goddess, and shows this light 
to-day, endowed with riches. . 

“So will she shine on days to come; tmmortal she moves on in her own 
strength, undecaying. 

“In the sky's borders hath she shone in splendour: the goddess hath 
thrown off the vetl of darkness. 

“ Awakening the world with purple horses, on her well-harnessed chariot 
Dawn approaches. 

“Bringing all life-sustaining blessings with her, showing herself she 
sends forth brilliant lustre. 

“Last of the countless mornings that have vanished, first of bright 
morns to come hath Dawn arisen. 

“Arise! the breath, the life, again hath reached us: darkness hath 
passed away, and light approacheth. 

“She for the Sun hath left a path to travel: we have arrived where men 
prolong existence. 

“ Singing the praises of refulgent mornings with ‘Ais hymns web the 
priest, the poet, rises. 

“Shine then to-day, rich maid, on him who lauds thee, shine down on 
us the gift of life and offspring. ... 

“ Mother of gods, Aditi’s form of glory, ensign of sacrifice, shine forth 
exalted. 

“ Rise up, bestowing praise on our devotion: all-bounteous, make us 
chief among the people. 

“ Whatever splendid wealth the Dawns bring with them to bless the 
man who offers praise and worship, | 

“ Even that may Mitra, Varuna vouchsafe us, and Aditi and Sindhu, 
Earth and Heaven,” } 


§ 3. Lhe Worship of the Sun among the Ancient Persians 


We have learned on the authority of Herodotus: that the Herodotus 


ancient Persians worshipped the whole circle of the sky, pea 


which they called by a name equivalent to Zeus, and _ to worship of 
which they offered sacrifices on the tops of. the highest ean 
mountains.” In the same passage the old historian, who 
appears to have been accurately acquainted with the Persian 


1 Rig-veda, i, 113 (Hymns of the J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 
Rigveda, translated with a popular V.3 pp. 181-190, and by H. D. Gris- 
commentary by R. T. H. Griffith, vol. wold, Zhe Religion of the Rigveda, 
i. pp. 195-198). Portions of this and pp. 244 sqq¢. 
of other two hymns, addressed to 2 Herodotus, i. 131. See above, 
Ushas, the Dawn, are translated by p. 32. 


The prayer 
and offer- 
ing of 
Xerxes 
before 
crossing 
the Helles- 
pont. 


456 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


religion, informs us that the Persians also sacrificed to the sun 
and moon and earth and fire and water and the winds. They 
thought that leprosy was a punishment inflicted on the sufferer 
for a sin which he had committed against the sun; hence 
the leper was strictly secluded and forbidden to mix with his 
fellows." When Xerxes was about to march out of Sardes at 
the head of his mighty host for the invasion of Greece, the 
sun was suddenly eclipsed ina clear sky, and the shadows of 
night replaced the splendour of the day. Alarmed at the 
portent, the King inquired of the Magians what it meant. 
But they reassured him and encouraged him to proceed on 
the fatal and ill-omened expedition by declaring that the 
eclipse portended the evacuation or desolation of the Greek 
cities, since it was the function of the sun to give omens to 
the Greeks, but of the moon to give omens to the Persians.” 
When he had reached the Hellespont, and the bridges were 
all ready for the passage of the army, the monarch tarried 
on the Asiatic shore till sunrise. Meantime, while the 
host waited in solemn silence for the order to march, myrtle 
boughs were strewed al! over the ground on which they were 
to tread, and incense was burned on the bridges ; the long 
line of fires might be seen glimmering in the morning twilight 
far away to the European shore, the shore from which so 
many thousands were to return no more. At the moment 
when the sun appeared above the horizon, Xerxes poured a 
libation from a golden cup into the sea, and looking towards 
the orb of day he prayed that no reverse might befall him 
which should prevent him from carrying his victorious arms 
to the utmost bounds of Europe. Having so prayed, he cast 
the golden cup, together with a golden bowl and a Persian 
scimitar, into the Hellespont ; but the careful historian adds 
that he could not say whether the King offered these things 
to the sun or to, the sea; for a short time before the despot 
had caused the sea to be scourged for destroying the first 
bridge over the Hellespont, and he might naturally wish, as 
a measure of prudence, to propitiate the sea-god, whose 
feelings might still be hurt and his back still sore from the | 
beating. The army was accompanied on the march by a 


1 Herodotus, i. 138. 2 Herodotus, vii. 37. 
3 Herodotus, vii. 54. As to the scourging of the Hellespont,’ see 7d. vii. 35. 


x1 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT PERSTANS 457 


chariot drawn by eight white horses in which no man was 
allowed to ride because it was sacred to the god whom 
Herodotus calls Zeus ;* the deity may. have been either the 
Sky-god or the Supreme God Ahura Mazda, whom Xerxes 
is known from the cuneiform inscriptions to have worshipped 
under the name of Auramazda. In one of these inscriptions 
Xerxes declares that “ Auramazda is a powerful god ; he is 
the greatest of the gods”.? This chariot sacred to Zeus is 
mentioned also by Xenophon in the historical romance which 
he devoted to the glorification of Cyrus the Elder, and he The 
tells us that it was followed by a chariot of the Sun, also ert h 
drawn by white horses and wreathed with garlands like the 
chariot of Zeus.’ | 

The evidence of Xenophon on all points of Persian Xenophon 
religion and life is to be received with great CaUOn ye ok 
for curiously enough he saw through a sort of magnifying 
haze of glory the Persians whom he had fought under 
a Persian captain. Yet on his long march and retreat 
through the Persian empire he had many opportunities of 
acquainting himself with the character and customs of his 
gallant enemies, and we cannot afford to dismiss all his 
statements on the subject as a soldier’s dream. In the same 
passage in which he describes the chariot of the Sun he tells 
us that horses were led along to be sacrificed to the solar Horses 
deity,t and later on he relates how the animals were burned VS" 
entire in honour of the luminary.” The statement that the by the 
Persians sacrificed horses to the Sun is confirmed by other Sarai 
ancient writers.° Indeed, Xenophon had personal reasons 
for being acquainted with the custom ; for marching through 
the snow on the mountains of Armenia he came to a village 
where horses were being bred as tribute for the king of 
Persia ; and in return for the hospitality which he and his 
men received from the villagers he gave the headman of 
the village a horse to fatten up and sacrifice to the Sun. 
The gift was not so liberal as his host perhaps imagined ; 


1 Herodotus, vii. 40, 55. was followed by a great horse called 


2 J. Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahri- oS aaa Une ails 


: : 4 Xenophon, /.c. 
Baieie 2052537 7))5P:/25- 6 Xenophon, Cyrofaedia, viii. 3. 24. 


3 Xenophon, Cyropaedia, viii. 3. 12. 6 Pausanias, iii. 20. 4; Philostratus, 
According to Quintus Curtius (iii. 3. 7) Vt. Apollon. i, 31.2; Ovid, Fastz, 
the sacred chariot of Jupiter (Zeus) i. 385 sg. 


Horses 
sacrificed 
to the Sun 
by the 
Massa- 
getae. 


Persian 
sacrifices to 
the Sun. 


Vine- 
dressers 
sacred to 
Apollo, 


Invoca- 
tions of 
the Sun 
in the 
Zena- 
Avesta, 


458 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES citar. 


for the shrewd Greek soldier observes that the charger 
was old and damaged by the march, and he feared it 
would die if pressed to go farther ; moreover, he took care to 
replace it by a colt which was being bred for his enemy the 
Persian king.’ Another people, possibly Iranian, who used 
to sacrifice horses to the Sun were the Massagetae, a people 
of Turkestan, to.the east of the Caspian. They alleged as 
the ground for the sacrifice that the swiftest of the gods ought 
to receive for his share the fleetest of mortal animals.” We 
shall see presently that in like manner horses were sacrificed 
to the Sun by the Lacedaemonians and the Rhodians.* 

Further, in the imaginary picture which he draws of the 
last days of Cyrus, his Greek panegyrist represents him 
offering sacrifices and praying to Zeus, the Sun, and all the 
other gods on the tops of the mountains in gratitude for 
the favours they had bestowed on him in his long career of 
glory. A later Greek historian, Agatharchides of Samos, 
speaks of Xerxes in Greece sacrificing oxen on an altar of 
the Sun.2 In a Greek letter of Darius the First, which was 
found engraved on a stone near Magnesia in Asia Minor, the 
monarch praises his vassal Gadates for transplanting certain 
fruits from beyond the Euphrates to Lower Asia, but 
threatens him with ‘punishment for his impiety in taking 
tribute of the vinedressers, who were sacred to Apollo, and 
compelling these holy men to dig unhallowed ground.® Here 
Apollo is probably equivalent to the Sun, who would accord- 
ingly seem to have had vineyards and vinedressers of his own 
in the time of Darius, just as he had cattle in the time of 
Homer. 

In the Zend-Avesta the Sun is invoked not unfrequently, 
but it cannot be said that he is the object of fervent worship; 
the references to him are mostly incidental; the benefits which 


1 Xenophon, Anabasis, iv. 5. 34 sg. 
2 Herodotus, i. 2163; Strabo, xi. 8. 
6. As to the ethnical affinities of the 
Massagetae, see (Sir) E. H. Bunbury, 


3 See below, pp. 476, 484. 

4 Xenophon, Cyropfaedia, viii. 7. 3. 

5 Agatharchides Samius, in F/rag- 
menta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. 


History of Ancient Geography? (Lon- 
don, 1883), ii. 224 note®, Humboldt 
was of opinion that the Massagetae 
belonged to the Indo-European family. 
If he was right, they may have been 
Iranians, 


C. Miiller, iii. 197. 

6 G. Dittenberger, Sy/loge Jnscrip- 
tionum Graecarum*, No, 22 (vol. i. 
pp. 20 sg.); Ch. Michel, Recuezl a’ Jn- 
scriptions Grecgues (Bruxelles, 1900), 
No. 32, p. 39. 


xn WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT PERSIANS 459 


he confers on mankind are rather left to be inferred than 
expressly enumerated in the texts,’ It would almost appear 
as if the prophet, lost in the rapturous contemplation of 
the spirituai Creator, were indifferent to the gross réalities 
of the material universe. In the Zend-Avesta the name of 
the Sun is kvare, which is verbally equivalent to the Sanscrit 
svar, of which Surya, the name for the sun and the Sun-god, 
is a derivative. The Greek /e/zos, “the sun”, comes from the 
same root.” The sun is called the eye of Ahura Mazda ;° 
and he is often spoken of as “swift-horsed ”,* which seems to 
imply that, like his Vedic counterpart and namesake Surya, 
he was supposed to be driven across the sky in a chariot 
drawn by horses. Thus in a hymn to the Sun we read: 

“Unto the undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun be pro- 
pitiation, with sacrifice, prayer, propitiation, and glorification. 
We sacrifice unto the undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun. 
When the light of the sun waxes warmer, when the bright- 
ness of the sun waxes warmer, then up stand the angels 
(Yasatas),” by hundreds and thousands: they gather together 
its Glory, they make its Glory pass down, they pour its Glory 
upon the earth made by Ahura, for the increase of the world 
of holiness, for the increase of the creatures of holiness, for 
the increase of the undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun. 

“And when the sun rises up, then the earth, made by 
Ahura, becomes clean; the running waters become clean, the 
waters of the wells become clean, the waters of the sea 
become clean, the standing waters become clean ; all the holy 
creatures, the creatures of the Good Spirit, become clean. 

“ Should not the sun rise up, then the demons (daévas) 
would destroy all the things that are in the seven quarters 
of the earth (Karshvares),° nor would the heavenly angels 


1 Fr. Spiegel, Lrdnzsche Alterthums- 5 Vasafas are an inferior order of 
Kunde, ii. 66 sg. divinities or angels. See Fr. Spiegel, 
2 A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mytho- Erdnische Alterthumskunde, ii. 41; 


10g7', pp. 31 Sy. 

3 Zend-Avesta, Part III. translated 
by L. H. Mills (Oxford, 1887), p. 199 
(Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxxi,). 

4 A, V. Williams Jackson, ** Die 
-iranische Religion”, in W. Geiger und 
EK. Kuhn, Grundriss der tranischen 
Philologte, ii. (Strassburg, 1896-1904), 
p. 649. 


A. V. Williams Jackson, ‘‘ Die iranische 
Religion”, in W. Geiger und FE, Kuhn, 
Grundriss der irantschen Philologie, ii. 
p. 632; J. H. Moulton, Zarly Zoro- 
astriantsm, p. 432. 

6 The old Iranians divided the earth 
into seven or three quarters or regions 
(karshvares). See Fr. Spiegel, 27é- 
nische Alterthumskunde, i, 189. 


Hymn to 

the Sun in 
the Zend- 
Avesta, 


Daily 
prayer to 
the Sun. 


460 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 


(Yazatas) find any way of withstanding or repelling them 
in the material world. 

“He who offers up a sacrifice unto the undying, shining, 
swift-horsed Sun—to withstand darkness, to withstand the 
demons (daévas) born of darkness, to withstand the robbers 
and bandits, to withstand the sorcerers (Ydtus)' and the 
peris (Pazrikas),? to withstand death that creeps in unseen 
—offers it up to Ahura Mazda, offers it up to the archangels 
(Amesha-Spentas), offers it up to his own soul. He rejoices 
all the heavenly and worldly angels ( Yazazas), who offers up 
a sacrifice unto the undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun. 

I bless the sacrifice and the invocation, and the strength 
and vigour of the undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun.” * 

And every layman over eight years old was bound to 
recite a prayer to the Sun, thrice a day, namely at sunrise, 
at noon, and at three o'clock in the afternoon: he recited 
it standing and girt with his sacred cord (kostz). He prayed, 
saying among other things: 

“Hail to Ahura Mazda! Hail to the lesser deities 
(Amesha - Spentas)! Hail to Mithra, the lord of wide 
pastures! Hail to. the Sun, the swift-horsed! ... We 
sacrifice unto the bright, undying, shining, swift-horsed Sun. 
We sacrifice unto Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, who 
is truth-speaking, a chief in assemblies, with a thousand ears, 

1 The Yé¢us include both human _ Persian, whose name signifies ‘‘ the 
sorcerers and demon sorcerers. See Immortal Holy Ones’’, are the deities 
Fr. Spiegel, Zrénische Alterthums- who rank below Ahura Mazda; they 
kunde, ii, 146-148; J. Darmesteter, may be described as archangels. Their 
Orimazd et Ahriman, pp. 174 sg.3 A. number is six or, if Ahura Mazda is 


V. Williams Jackson, ‘‘ Die iranische included among them, seven. They 
Religion”, in W. Geiger und E. Kuhn, are deified abstractions and therefore 


' Grundriss der tranischen Philologte, of comparatively late origin rather than 


ii. 665; J. H. Moulton, Zar/y Zoro- ancient deities of nature. See Fr. 
astrianism, p. 209. Spiegel, Avdnische Alterthumskunde, 
ii, 28 sgg.; A. V. Williams Jackson, 
‘* Die iranische Religion”, in W. Geiger 
und E, Kuhn, Grusndriss der tranischen 
Philologte, ii. 633 sg. Plutarch tells 
us that Oromasdes (Ahura Mazda), 
created six gods, who are doubtless 
the Amesha-Spentas, though Plutarch 
does not name them so, See Plutarch, 
Lsis et Ostris, 47. 

* Zend-Avesta, Part II. translated by ° 

3 The Amesha-Spentas or Amsha- James Darmesteter, pp. 85-87 (Sacred 
spands, as they are called in later Books of the East, vol. xxiii.). 


2 The Pairtkas are wicked fairy 
women who seduce men by their 
beauty. See Fr. Spiegel, Ayrdnische 
Alterthumskunde, ii. 138 sg.3 J. 
Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, pp. 
174 sg.; A. V. Williams Jackson, 
‘“Die iranische Religion”, in W. 
Geiger und-E, Kuhn, Grundriss der 
txanischen Philologie, ii. 665. 


WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 461 


XII 


well-shapen, with ten thousand eyes, high, with full know- 
ledge, strong, sleepless, and ever awake. We sacrifice unto 
Mithra, the lord of all countries, whom Ahura Mazda made 
the most glorious of all the gods in the world unseen. So 
may Mithra and Ahura, the two great gods, come to us for 
help! We sacrifice unto the bright, undying, shining, swift- 
horsed Sun,” ! 

This prayer suffices to prove that at the date of its Mithra dis- 
composition Mithra was regarded as a god distinct from the pate 
Sun; he was not yet identified or confused with the solar Sun. 
deity, as he came to be in later times. To that confusion 


we shall return presently.” 


§ 4. The Worship of the Sun among the Ancient Greeks * 


The Greeks personified and worshipped the Sun under Greek wor- 
his proper name of Helios, but in general they paid little atten- aoe Ge 
tion to him. Tothis rule the Rhodians were an exception, for Sun. 

_ they deemed their island sacred to the Sun-god and elevated 
him to a high, if not to the principal, place in their pantheon. 
But on the whole the solar deity under his proper name 
plays a very subordinate part in the religion, the mythology, 
and the art of ancient Greece. In the hymn-book which 
goes by the name of Homer, a short and not very enthusiastic Homeric 
piece is devoted to his praise. In it we read that his father eae 
was Hyperion, that is, He who goes on high; that his 
mother was Euryphaesia, that is, She who shines far and 


1 Zend-Avesta, Part II. translated 
by James Darmesteter, pp. 349-351 
(Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxiii.). 
The osti, as the modern Parsees call 
it, was the sacred cord with which, at 
about the age of fifteen, every worship- 
per of Ahura Mazda was solemnly girt 
as a token of his membership of the 
religious community." It was worn 
constantiy both by men and women 
during the day and only laid aside at 
night, In later times the investiture 
with the sacred cord took place earlier 
than in the fifteenth year. See Fr. 
Spiegel, Erédnische Alterthumskunde, 
iii. 578, 700 sg.: W. Geiger, Ostzra- 
nische Kultur im Altertum (Erlangen, 
1882), pp. 238 sg. 


2 See below, pp. 503 sg. 

3 On this subject see F. G. Welcker, 
Griechische  Gotterlehre (Gottingen, 
1857--1863), 1. 400-413; L. Preller, 
Griechische Mythologie, i.4, ed. C. 
Robert, pp. 429-440; Kapp, s.v. 
‘* Helios”, in W. H. Roscher, -4zsfihr- 
liches Lextkon der griechischen und 
romischen Mythologie, i. coll. 1993- 
2026; -E; Calien, s.z.°** Sol.”, Jin 
Daremberg et Saglio, Déctzonnaire des 
Antiguités Grecques et Romaines, iv. 2, 
pp. 1373-1381; Jessen, s.v. ‘‘ Helios”, 
in Pauly-Wissowa, eal-Excyclopadie 
der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 
yiti. .T,, col}. 958-93 ; LU. i. Farnell, 
The Cults of the Greek States, v. 
(Oxford, 1909) pp. 417-420. 


462 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cnap. 


wide ; and that his sisters were the rosy-armed Dawn and 
the fair-tressed Moon. He himself is spoken of as splendid, 
The chariot unwearied, like the immortals; mounted on his golden-reined 
pn pe chariot, drawn by horses, he shines on mortals and the im- 
god. mortal gods. He wears a golden helmet; bright rays flash 
from him; bright hair floats about his temples and enframes 
his lovely beaming face; a glistering garment, finely spun, 
wraps him about and streams upon the wind.! 

This description of the resplendent Sun-god in human 
form, riding his horse-drawn car, answers to the general 
conception of him which the Greeks formed and embodied 
in works both of literature and art. We see him, for 

Thechariot example, exactly so portrayed in a fine metope which once 
ae das adorned a temple at New Ilium. The god stands erect in 
inametope the chariot, which, however, is hidden by the four prancing 
ofatemple. steeds: one arm is raised over the heads of the horses as if 
holding the reins: his face is turned full to the right and to 
the spectator: the features of his face are noble: ample 
curling locks enframe his brow and cheeks: broad sunbeams 
radiate from his head; and behind him his flowing robe 
streams on the wind.” Yet it is remarkable that no mention 
of the chariot and horses of the Sun occurs in the //zad@ or 
Odyssey, though the car and the steeds are repeatedly men- 
tioned inthe Homerichymns. Thus, to take another instance, 
Demeter's when Demeter was searching the world over for her daughter 
Pee Persephone, ravished by gloomy Dis, she appealed to the Sun 
god in his to help her to find the loved and lost one. She took her stand 
chariot. : . . 
in front of the chariot and horses and prayed, saying: “O 
Sun, have pity on me, since from the divine ether thou lookest 
down with thy rays on all the earth and sea, tell me true if thou 
didst see what god or mortal man has snatched far from me 
my darling child”. The god informed the sorrowful goddess 
that Hades (Pluto) had carried her daughter off on his 
chariot to be his bride in the gloomy infernal world. Then, 


1 Homeric Hymn, xxxi. In line 11 W. H. Roscher, Ausftihrliches Lexikon 

I accept Pierson’s emendation, mepl der griechischen und romischen Mytho- 

Kporagpoiat 7’ €Gepar for the manuscript J/ogze, i. 2005-2006. For evidence of 

reading mapa xpotddwy Te rapeai, the chariot and horses of the Sun in 

Greek literature and art, see further 

2 A. Baumeister, Denkmdler des Rapp, op. cié. coll. 1998 sy., 2005- 
klassischen Altertums, i. 639, fig. 710; 2009; Jessen, of. ct. coll: 88-90. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 463 


after comforting her as well as he could by dwelling on the 
splendid match which her daughter was making, he called to 
his horses, and they swept away his chariot, like birds upon 
the wing.’ 

This conception of the Sun as knowing all that happens The all- 
upon earth, because he looks down on it from the sky, is tical 
familiar to Homer, for both in the //zad and the Odyssey the witness. 
Sun is said to sce and hear all things, and in one passage 
Agamemnon appeals to him, along with Zeus, and the Rivers, 
and Earth, and the gods of the nether world, to be the 
witnesses of his oath,? and elsewhere the King swears by 
Zeus, Earth, Sun, and the Avenging Furies.* Euripides makes 
Medea, on her arrival in Athens, exact from King Aegeus 
an oath by the Earth and the Sun that he will protect her ; * 
and Apollonius RKhodius represents her swearing to Arete, 
wife of Alcinous, by the light of the Sun and Hecate. Ina 
letter to a certain philosopher named Maximus the Emperor 
Julian calls Zeus, the great Sun, Athene, and all the gods and 
goddesses to witness that he had trembled for the safety 
of his philosophic friend.” We have seen that in Greek- 
speaking lands the custom of attesting fidelity by a solemn 
appeal to Zeus, the Sun, and the lI*arth persisted down to 
Imperial times ; such oaths are often recorded in inscriptions.’ 

This personification of the Sun as a deity who knows The 
everything and stands for righteousness is sometimes em- Sead 
ployed with fine effect by the Greek tragedians. Thus in the Sun as 
Aeschylus, when Prometheus is nailed to a crag on the snowy ace 
Caucasus as a punishment for the benefits which he had con- Greek 
ferred on mankind, he appeals to “the all-seeing circle of the "8°" 
Sun”, to the divine ether and swift-winged breezes, to the 
springs of rivers and the unnumbered dimpling smile of ocean 
waves, and to Earth the Universal Mother, calling on them to 
witness the wrongs which he, himself a god, suffers at the hand 
of the gods. Again, going to her death, Cassandra prays to 


1 Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 62-89. 4 Euripides, A/edea, 745-753. 
The chariot and horses of the Sun are 5 Apollonius Rhodius, Arvonaurica, 
also mentioned in Homeric Hymn to iv. 1019 sg. 
Hermes, 68 sq. © Julian, 2 ptst. -38, vol. ii. p.'536 
* Homer, J/iad, iii. 275-280; ed. Hertlein. 
Odyssey, xi. 109, xii, 323. 7 See above, pp. 325-327. 


3 Homer, //iad, xix. 257 sgq. 8 Aeschylus, /vometheus, 88-92. 


The appeal 


of the 
dying Ajax 


to the Sun. 


464 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cnar. 


the Sun for vengeance on her murderers.) And when the 
matricide Orestes feels his brain beginning to reel at the 
approach of the Furies of his murdered mother, he bids them 
spread out the gory garment which his father wore in his 
last hour, that in it the all-seeing Sun may behold the 
unhallowed handiwork of his mother and may at his trial bear 
witness that he was indeed the man to visit on her the blood 
of his dead sire.” 

Sophocles also introduces the Sun as the unwilling 
witness of unrighteous deeds and as their appropriate avenger. 
Thus in the palace at Mycenae, polluted by the murder of 
the rightful king and the triumph of his murderers, the 
chorus asks passionately where are the thunderbolts of Zeus 
and where the bright Sun, if they behold these deeds and 
sit with folded hands nor smite the guilty pair.’ 

At Thebes, when the full horror of the crimes committed 
by the unwitting Oedipus had been brought to light, Creon 
drove him into the house on the plea that the pure Sun 
ought not to look upon so defiled a wretch.* Afterwards at 
Colonus, in Attica, on a bright day in early spring, while 
snow still crowned the distant hills and the nightingales were 
singing in the neighbouring grove, the blind and banished 
Oedipus retorted on his persecutor Creon, cursing him and all 
his house, and saying, “ May the all-seeing Sun give thee 
and thine even such a sad old age as mine”.® Again, in 
Euripides, when the witch Medea announces that she has 
steeled her heart to slay her children, the horror-struck 
chorus prays to Earth and to the Sun’s resplendent glory to 
look down upon the abandoned woman before she lays a 
ruthless hand upon her offspring.® 

But nowhere perhaps has a Greek poet yoked, so to say, 
the chariot of the Sun in his service with finer effect than 
in the pathetic passage wherein the gallant Ajax, about to 
fall upon his sword, looks up at the Sun and bids him, in 
his bright chariot carry the message of his sorrows and his 


1 Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1323- 5 Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus, 868- 

1326. 870. For the scene and time of the 
2 Aeschylus, Choephor. 983-989. play, see Jebb’s Introduction to his 
3 Sophocles, £/ectra, 825 sg. edition (Cambridge, 1900), p. xii. 


4 Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, 1424- 


1431. 6 Euripides, Medea, 1251-1254. 


XII WORSHIP .OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 465 


death to his far home in Greece, across the rolling sea. “O 
Sun,” he cries, “who in thy car dost ride heaven’s steep, 
when thou lookest upon my fatherland, O draw thy golden 
reins and tell my sorrows and my fate to my old sire and to the 
hapless dame, my mother ; all] the town will ring with her sad 
wail when she shall hear thy tidings. And thou, O present 
‘radiance of the shining day, and thou the Sun, the charioteer, 
I hail ye for the last time, and then no more for ever.”? 
But while the Sun was thus supposed to drive across the sky The golden 

in a chariot by day, it was imagined that after plunging into the 87! 
sea in the west he returned by night to his starting-point in 
the east, floating over the subterranean ocean in a golden 
goblet. In a beautiful poem Mimnermus has described the 
tired god, after his day’s toil, sleeping in his lovely bed, while 
the winged goblet, wrought of beaten gold by the hands of 
Hephaestus, wafts him lightly over the waves from the far 
western land of the Hesperides to the far eastern land of 
the Ethiopians, where his chariot and horses stand waiting 
for him, till his herald, the rosy-fingered Dawn, shall mount 
the sky and the great god shall begin his weary, never- 
ending journey afresh.2 According to Pherecydes, the 
horses of the Sun were also ferried across the sea by night 
in the golden goblet ;* and this seems only reasonable, else 
how could they have crossed all that stretch of water and 
been ready to start again next morning in the east? When 
Hercules went to lift the cattle of Geryon in his far western 
island of Erythea, beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, he needed 
a vessel of some sort in which to sail across the sea. So he 
asked the Sun for the loan of his golden goblet, and bending 
his bow at the solar orb, threatened to shoot the deity, if he 
did not comply with his request. The frightened Sun implored 
him not to shoot, and lent him the precious goblet. So 
Hercules embarked in it and sailed away westward. And 
when he came out on the open Atlantic, and saw the coasts 
of Spain and Africa stretching away behind him and 
fading into the blue distance, the god of Ocean, to try his> 

1 Sophocles, Ajax, 845-857. I Mimnermus, The poem of Mimnermus 


have shortened the passage. is given also by Bergk, Poetae Lyrtct 
? Athenaeus, xi. 38-39, pp. 469- Graec?, ii.2 p. 412, frag. 12. 
470, quoting Pisander, Panyasis, Stesi- 3 Pherecydes, ‘quoted by Athenaeus, 


chorus, Antimachus, Aeschylus, and xi. 39, p. 470C. 
VOL. I 2H 


The 
humanity 
of the Sun- 
god. 


The sacred 
flocks and 
herds of 
the Sun in 
Thrinacia. 


466 WORSATP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


courage, caused the goblet to rock and heave on the swell 
of the great billows. But, nothing daunted, the truculent 
hero threatened to shoot the Sea-god also; and the deity, 
in alarm, begged him to hold his hand, so there was a 
great calm.’ Thus bully Hercules sailed to Erythea, stole 
the kine of Geryon, embarked them on the goblet, and 
landed them safely on the coast of Spain; after which, he 
restored the goblet to the Sun.” 

These accounts suffice to prove how very human the 
Sun-god was supposed to be; for in them we see him at 
one time driving his team across the sky, at. another time 
reining them up and stopping to deliver the last message 
of the dying Ajax to his parents in Salamis, and yet again 
cowed by the threats of Hercules and lending his precious 
goblet on compulsion to the swaggering hero. In Homer 
the deity also figures as a successful cattle-breeder ; for in 
the Odyssey we read how in the island of Thrinacia he had 
seven herds of cows and seven flocks of shcep, fifty cows in 
every herd and fifty sheep in every flock; neither herd 
nor flock ever multiplied or diminished ; their numbers 
remained for ever the same. They were tended by two 
fair-tressed nymphs, Phaethusa and Lampetia, whom Neaera 
bore to the Sun.2 These goodly herds and flocks the Sun- 
god loved to behold, both at his rising and at his setting.’ The 
witch Circe in her magic isle, and the ghost of the prophet 
Tiresias in the nether world, had bidden Ulysses beware of 
molesting the sacred herds and flocks, warning him that, 
if he slaughtered them, his ship and all his comrades would 
perish, and that if he himself ever reached home it would 
be after long delay and in evil plight.2 So when the ship, 


1 Pherecydes, quoted by Athenaeus, 8. Homer, Od.:/xiiit27-136. 9 Gom- 


xi. 39, p. 470 C-D; compare Apollo- 
dorus, ii. 5.10; Scholiast on Apollonius 
Rhodius, Argor. iv. 1396. 

In a late vase-painting the Sun and 
the Dawn, mounted on a four-horse 
car, are seen transported across the 
sea in a ship, not a goblet. See 
F, G. Welcker, Antihe Denkmaler, 
iii, taf. x. 1; E. Gerhard, Gesammelte 
akademische Abhandlungen (Berlin, 
1866-1868), taf. vii. 3. 

2 Apollodorus, ii. 5. 10. 


pare Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. iv, 
964-979. According to the historian 
Timaeus (quoted by a scholiast on 
Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. iv. 965), 
the island of Thrinacia was Sicily, 
which was so called on account of its 
triangular shape, But more probably 
the island was purely mythical. 


4 Homer, Od. xii. 379 sg. 


5 Homer, Od. xi. 104-115, xii. 127- 
141. 


X11 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS — 467 


after threading the perilous passage between Scylla and How 
Charybdis, was off the Thrinacian isle, the mariners could sere 
hear afar off the lowing of the cows and the bleating of of Ulysses 
the sheep. Weary with the voyage they landed on the vere 
island for rest and refreshment bestde a spring of sweet ate the | 
water. After partaking of supper and lamenting for the aig 
comrades whom Scylla had snatched from the ship and 
devoured, the night closed in upon them, and they wept 
themselves to sleep. But when the night was waning 

and the stars had crossed the zenith, the wind rose and 

blew a hurricane. Jor a whole month it blew, and the 
mariners dared not put out upon the angry sea. Fora time, 
warned by Ulysses, they subsisted on the corn and wine they 

had brought with them in the ship; but when these were 
exhausted, one evil day, while Ulysses had wandered away 

and fallen fast asleep, they yielded to the pangs of hunger 

and slew the finest of the oxen of the Sun and roasted 

the flesh on spits over the fre. Waking from sleep and 
retracing his steps to the ship, Ulysses smelt the sweet 
savour of the roast meat and groaned aloud. Word of the How Zeus 
sacrilege was carried by Lampetia to the Sun; for in spite Pee 


the sinners 
of his sharp sight the outrage appears to have escaped his and 


notice. The indignant deity at once appealed to Zeus and eS he 
the other immortal gods, demanding vengeance on_ the 8°. 
sinners, and threatening that, if this reasonable demand 
were not granted, he would go down to Hades and shine 
among the dead. In great agitation, Zeus implored him 
not to carry out this dreadful threat and promised to hurl 

a thunderbolt at the ship and smash it in the middle of the 
sea. Reckless of their doom, the sinners feasted on the finest 

of the oxen for six whole days. Then on the seventh day, 
when the wind had dropped, they put off from shore, stepped 

the mast, and hoisted the white sails. But when they were out 

of sight of land, biack clouds gathered overhead and the sea 
grew dark beneath them. The wind came down out of the 
west with a roar and snapped the rigging, so that the mast 

fell with a crash, striking the helmsman’s head and sweeping 
him overboard. Then Zeus kept his word to the Sun; for 

he hurled a thunderbolt and smote the ship, which staggered 
under the blow and was filled with sulphur. All the wicked 


The cows 
and sheep 
of the Sun 
interpreted 
as the days 
and nights 
of a lunar 
year, 


468 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 


men who had partaken of the sacred roast beef tumbled into 
the sea and were drowned; but the pious Ulysses was saved 
on a floating spar. Thus were the sinners punished and the 
Sun-god avenged.’ | 
The cattle and sheep of the Sun-god have been variously 
interpreted in ancient and modern times. Homer clearly 
thought of them as very substantial animals, whose flesh 
could furnish a hearty meal. But this interpretation is too 
gross and palpable to satisfy some mythologists, with whom 
it is a first principle that in mythology nothing is what it 
seems or what its name seems to imply. From observing 
that the total number of the cows was three hundred and 
fifty, since seven herds of fifty head apiece amount precisely 
to that sum, the sagacious Aristotle concluded that the cows 
stood for the days of a lunar year, which he appears to have 
calculated at three hundred and fifty and which, like the 
cows of the Sun, never vary in number but remain perpetually 
the same.” An ingenious scholiast on Homer clinches the 
interpretation by explaining the corresponding three hundred 
and fifty sheep to be the nights of the lunar year.® The 
Aristotelian explanation of the three hundred and fifty cows 
was accepted by Lucian in antiquity * and by F. G. Welcker 
in modern times.? Apollonius Rhodius perhaps favoured the 
same interpretation, for in describing the cattle of the Sun, 
which the Argonauts saw in passing the island, and of which 
the lowing of the cows and the bleating of the sheep were 
wafted to their ears out at sea, he tells us that not one of the 
cows was dark, every one was white as milk with golden 
horns.2 The picture might pass in mythology for a 
description of a bright day touched with the gold of sunrise 
and sunset. Certainly Homer would seem to have had a 
definite idea in his mind when he fixed the number of the 
Sun’s cows and sheep at precisely three hundred and fifty 
each, adding that the numbers never varied. The idea 
corresponds fairly to the number of days and nights in a year 


1 Homer, Od. xii. 260-425; com- 4 Lucian, De astrologia, 22. 
pare Apollodorus, Zf7¢, vii. 22 sq. 5 F, G, Welcker, Griechische Gotter- 
2 Scholiast on Homer, Od. xii. 129; J/ehre (Gottingen, 1857-1862), i. 404- 


_ Eustathius on IIomer, Od. xii, 130, 406 


Deilylee 6 Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. iv. 
3 Scholiast on Homer, Od. xii. 129. 964-978. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 469 


composed of twelve lunar months; for though the true 
number of the days in such a year is not three hundred and 
fifty but three hundred and fifty-four, we may allow the poet 
the licence of a round number without tying him down to 
mathematical exactness. 

Others would see in the cows of the Sun the white and The cows 
golden or red clouds that gather round the great luminary at sateen 
his rising and setting. In favour of this view it might be as clouds. 
alleged that the Sun himself in his appeal to Zeus and the 
gods declares that he loved to look on his cattle both when 
he mounted up into the starry sky and when he returned 
again from heaven to earth.' Further, it has been pointed 
out that according to one account the kine in the island of 
Erythea were the cows of the Sun,” that these kine are ex- 
pressly said to have been red or purple,® and that Erythea 
is the Red Island in the far west.* All this would fit 
very well into a myth of the red, purple, and golden clouds 
of sunrise and sunset ; but it leaves the fixing of their number 
at three hundred and fifty quite unexplained. 

However, many of the ancients, rejecting or ignoring both Herds of 
the astronomical and the nebular hypothesis, appear to have Ov; *ne 
acquiesced in the plain view that the cows and sheep of the sheep de- 
Sun were cows and sheep and nothing else. In Sicily the oa 
very place was pointed out, near the little town of Artemisium, 
where the cows of the Sun had pastured, and where Ulysses 
slept while his comrades committed the fatal sacrilege. At 
Cape Taenarum, in Laconia, there used to be kept flocks of 
fleecy sheep which were deemed sacred to the Sun ;° and 
we are told that formerly there were herds of the Sun at 
Gortyn in Crete.’ 

At Apollonia in Epirus, down apparently to the time Flock of 
of Herodotus in the fifth century before Christ, there were Speer ri 
sheep sacred to the Sun, which pastured by day on the the Sun at 

: . ° Apollonia 
banks of a river, but were folded at night in a cave far in Epirus. 
from the city, where they were guarded during the hours 


1 Homer, Od, xii. 379 sg. der griechischen und rimischen Mytho- 
2 Apollodorus, i. 6. 1. logie, i. 2018 sg. 
3 Apollodorus, ii, 5. 10 elxe 6€ 5 Appian, Bell. Civ. v. 116. 
goirads Boas. . ; 
4 W.H. Roscher, Hermes der Wind- 6 Homeric Hymn to the Pythian 
gott (Leipzig, 1878), p. 44; Rapp, in Apollo, 233-235. 
W.H. Roscher’s Ausftihrliches Lexikon 7 Servius, on Virgil, Zc/, vi. 60. 


How the 
somnolent 
shepherd 
became a 
great 
diviner. 


470 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuapr. 


of darkness by men of the richest and noblest families in 
Apollonia. Each of these guardians held office for a year. 
On one occasion it chanced that the guardian, Evenius by 
name, fell asleep on his watch, and while he slept wolves 
attacked the sheep and devoured sixty of them. TJTor thus 
sleeping on his watch and allowing the sacred flock to be 
ravaged, Evenius was punished by having both his eyes put out. 
But after he had been thus mutilated, the sacred sheep ceased 
to lamb and the land to bear fruit as usual. So the people 
of Apollonia consulted the oracles of Delphi and Dodona, and 
the prophets at these holy places informed them that the gods 
were angry with the people for wrongfully blinding the 
shepherd of the sacred sheep, because it was the gods them- 
selves who had instigated the wolves to worry the sheep, and 
that they would never cease avenging the wrong done to that 
innocent man until the people atoned for it by granting him 
whatever satisfaction he might demand ; moreover, they said 
that as soon as this satisfaction was made they would them- 
selves bestow on the blind shepherd such a gift as would make 
many persons account him blessed. When these oracles were 
reported, the people of Apollonia kept them quiet and com- 
missioned some of their number to see the blind man and 
try to make the best bargain they could with him. The 
commissioners found him sitting on a bench in the market- 
place ; so they sat down beside him and entered into conver- 
sation. From general topics they led the talk to the subject 
of his misfortune, and after expressing their sympathy with 
him they asked, in a casual sort of way, what compensation 
would satisfy him, supposing that his fellow-citizens were 
willing to make him amends for the wrong they had done 
him. To this the blind man, knowing nothing of the oracle, 
replied in the innocence of his heart, that if they gave him 
the two best estates in the country and the finest house in 
the city he would be perfectly satisfied and would owe them 
no grudge for what they had done to him. The com- 
missioners took him at his word and divulged the secret 
by saying that the people would give him this compen- 
sation in obedience to the oracles. The blind man fumed 
and stormed, feeling that he had been outwitted, and thinking 
how very much higher he would have pitched his demands 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 471 


if only he had known that the gods had, so to say, given 
him a blank cheque to draw on the bank of Apollonia. 
However, it was all to no purpose ; the estates and the house 
were purchased by the town and handed over to him, and he 
had to make the best of the bargain. But the gods were as 
good as their word ; for no sooner had he thus come into his 
fortune than they endowed him with the gift of prophecy, 
and he became a famous diviner.' 

This story has all the air of being authentic, and it is of Suggested 
interest as illustrating the eminent degree of sanctity which in pear nN 
historical times the inhabitants of Apollonia attached to the sacred 
sheep of the Sun, since they set a man of the highest birth Sahiba pe 
and fortune to watch over the sheep every night in their 
cave, and punished the watchman severely for any neglect 
of duty. Here the sheep were undoubtedly sheep and not 
clouds of the rosy dawn or golden sunset ; hence the cows of 
the Sun, which the companions of Ulysses devoured in the 
isle of Thrinacia may very well have been likewise creatures 
of flesh and blood and not pale abstractions of the mythical 
fancy. Perhaps we may suppose that real herds of cows and 
flocks of sheep were actually dedicated to the Sun-god, and 
that the number both of the cows and of the sheep was fixed 
at three hundred and fifty, or perhaps at three hundred and 
fifty-four, because, in the imperfect state of the calendar, that 
was reckoned the number of days in the year, and people 
thought that a daily allowance of one cow and one sheep 
should suffice to support the deity in the discharge of his 
arduous duties. If we adopt this view, we need not neces- 
sarily assume that the animals were sacrificed daily; like 
many other divinities, the Sun-god may have been imagined 
to content himself with the spiritual essence of the sacred 
kine without insisting on their slaughter. 

_ In accordance with his character as a personal being the The wife 
Sun was supposed to be married. The name of his wife is een cle 
commonly given as Perse, or Perseis, daughter of Ocean,” the Sun. 
but many other goddesses, nymphs, or women are men- 
tioned by ancient authors as the partners of the Sun-god in 


1 Herodotus, ix. 93-94. iii, I. 2, Ep¢t. vii. 14; Apollonius 
2 Homer, Od. x. 139 sg.; Hesiod, Rhodius, Argon. iv. 591; Hyginus, 
Theog. 956 sg.; Apollodorus, i. 9, 1, Fab. 156 and preface p. 31 ed. Bunte. 


Aeétes, the 
son of the 
Sun. 


472 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


love or marriage and as the mothers of his numerous off- 
spring. Among them we might naturally expect to find 
the Moon, and there are some grounds for holding that the 
Greeks did associate her with the Sun as his wedded wife, 
but the mythical marriage of the two great luminaries is 
rather a matter of inference than of direct attestation.? Of 
the children of the Sun the most celebrated were Aeétes°* 
Circe,* and Pasiphae.° It is remarkable that all three of 
them, as well as some of their offspring, such as Medea 
and Phaedra, were famed for their wickedness and crimes ; 
in particular the women were notorious witches. Why 
there should have been this taint in the blood of the Sun is 
not manifest. 

_Aeétes is called baleful by Homer;°® and Diodorus 
Siculus says that Aeétes and his brother Perses, both 
children of the Sun, were exceedingly cruel.’ Aeétes was 
king of Colchis, and being warned by an oracle that 
he would die whenever strangers should land in his 
country and carry off the Golden Fleece, which Phrixus 
had dedicated in the temple of Ares, he gave orders that 
all strangers were to be sacrificed. This, says Diodorus, he 
did not only to escape the threatened danger but also out of 
sheer natural cruelty, in order that, the report of the savagery 
of the Colchians getting abroad, no foreigner might dare to 


set foot in their land. Moreover, lest anybody should make > 


off with the Golden Fleece, he built a wall round the temple 
of Ares in which the precious fleece was kept, and he set 


1 Rapp, s.v. ‘‘ Helios”, in W. H. 
Roscher’s Ausfihrliches Lexikon der 


griechischen und rimischen Mythologie, 


i, 2016 sg.3; Jessen, s.v. ‘* Helios”, in 
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie der 
classischen Altertumswissenschaft, viii. 
I, coll, 78-80, 

2 That the Sun (Helios) and Moon 
(Selene) were regarded as husband and 
wife has been maintained, for example, 
by W. H. Roscher. See his Selene 
und Verwandtes (Leipzig, 1890), pp. 
75 sgg.3; id., s.v. ‘*Mondgottin”’, in 
Ausfiihr, Lexikon der griech, und rom, 
Mythologie, ii. call. 3157 sgg. Com- 
pare Zhe Golden Bough, Part III. Zhe 
Dying God, pp. 87 sgg.; and especially 
A. B, Cook, Zeus, i. (Cambridge, 1914) 


Pp. 521 S99. 

3 Homer, Od. x. 137-139; Hesiod, 
Theog. 956 sg.; Diodorus Siculus, iv. 
45. 1; Apollodorus, i. 9. 1; Hyginus, 
Fab, 156 and p. 31 ed. Bunte, 

4 Homer, Od, x. 135-139; Hesiod, 
Theog. 956 sy.; Apollodorus, i. 9. 1, 
Lpit. vii. 14; Hyginus, 7ad, 156 and 
p. 31 ed. Bunte. 
dorus Siculus (iv. 45. 3), Circe was 
a daughter of Aeétes and therefore 
granddaughter of the Sun. 

5 Apollonius Rhodius, A7zgon, iii. 
999; Apollodorus, i. 9. I, ili. I. 23 
Diodorus Siculus, iv. 60. 4; Pausanias, 
v. 25.9; Hyginus, Fad. 40 and S03 

6 Homer, Od. x. 137. 

7 Diodorus Siculus, iv. 45. 1. 


According to Dio- | 


OO OO 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 473 


watchmen to watch it, whom rumour magnified into a dragon 
and fire-breathing bulls,? 

As for Circe, the daughter of the Sun, it is said that Circe, the 
she was a past-mistress of drugs and poisons of all sorts, ((Ugner 
Being married to the king of the Sarmatians, she began 
operations by taking him off by poison, and then, having 
succeeded to the throne, she committed so many crimes of 
cruelty and violence against her people that they drove 
her out of the country. Afterwards, according to some 
mythologists, she took refuge with her attendant women in 
a remote and desert isle of ocean; but certain historians 
will have it that she settled at the headland of Italy which 
was called Circeii after her.” Every one knows how by 
her baleful drugs she turned the companions of Ulysses 
into swiné, after that by her enchantments she had trans- 
formed other men into wolves and lions, which stood on 
their hind legs, wagged their tails, and fawned upon human 
_beings.® 

As for Pasiphae, daughter of the Sun, to say nothing of Pasiphae, 
her unnatural love for a bull,* she bewitched her husband Minos aacotre a 
so that he was affected by a strange malady which proved the Sun. 
fatal to any woman whom he approached.’ This wicked 
woman had a wicked daughter Phaedra,® whose criminal 
passion for her stepson Hippolytus led to the tragic death 
of that slandered but virtuous young man.’ Thus Phaedra, 
as a daughter of Pasiphae, was a granddaughter of the Sun. 

Still more flagrant and notorious, if possible, were the Medea, a 
crimes of Medea, who, as a daughter of Aeetes, was likewise teint of 
a granddaughter of the Sun.° Having made a thorough the Sun, 

1 Diodorus Siculus, iv. 46-47. Ac- 


her long 
into swine, some into wolves, some career of 
cording to Hyginus (/ad, 22), Aeétes 


into asses, and some into lions. crime. 


had received an oracle that he would 4 Apollodorus, iii, 15. 83 Ovid, 
reign as long as the Golden Fleece, Aferamorph. ix. 735-740. 
which Phrixus had dedicated, should 5 Apollodorus, iii. 15.1; Napeaee 


remain in the temple of Mars. 

2 Diodorus Siculus, iv. 45. 3- 
The Italian home of Circe matically 
found favour with Italian poets (Virgil, 
Aen, vii. 10 sgg.3; Ovid, Aletamorph. 

xiv, 8-10). 

“+ 8) Homer, Od. x. 210-243; Ovid, 
Metamorph, xiv. 245-307. According 
to Apollodorus (Zfz¢, vii. 15), she 
turned some of the comrades of Ulysses 


Liberalis, Zransform. 41. 

6 Apollodorus, iii. 1. 2. 

7 Apollodorus, ZZzt, i. 17-19; Dio- 
dorus Siculus, iv. 62; Pausanias, i. 
22. 1 5g., li. I-43 Hyginus, Fad, 47 ; 
Ovid, Metamorph, xv. 497 sqy. 

8 Hesiod, 7heog. 958-962; Diodorus 
Siculus, iv. 45. 3; Apollodorus, i. 9. 
23; Hyginus, Aad. 25. 


Medea in 
Colchis. 


Medea in 
Toleus. 


Medea in 
Corinth. 


474 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES chap. 


study of all the properties of drugs,’ this bad woman became 
a profound adept in witchcraft and, armed with that deadly 
weapon and with a heart stéeled against every emotion of 
pity, perpetrated such a series of atrocious’ crimes as is 
calculated to fill the mind with horror. By her drugs she 
lulled to sleep the watchful dragon which guarded the 
Golden Fleece, thus enabling her lover Jason to purloin that 
talisman on which depended the life, or at all events the 
reign, of her aged father. Then with her paramour she fled 
the country, and being pursued by her injured sire she did 
not scruple to cut her young brother Apsyrtus limb from 
limb and scatter the pieces in the sea in order to stay 
pursuit, while her father engaged in the melancholy task of 
gathering up the mangled remains of his murdered son.” 
Having reached [olcus, the home of Jason, she repaired to 
the palace of Pelias, the king of the country, and persuaded 
the king’s daughters to make mince meat of their old father 
and boil him in a cauldron, promising that by the help of 
her enchantments he would issue from the cauldron alive 
and young. To demonstrate the truth of her prediction she 
actually did thus restore to life and youth an aged ram which 
she had carved and boiled. But naturally Pelias remained as 
dead as a door-nail, and Iolcus became too hot to hold Medea. 
So she and her husband sought refuge in Corinth. There 
Jason divorced her and would have married Glauce, daughter 
of Creon, the king of the country. But the witch Medea 
sent the bride a wedding robe steeped in poison, and, when 
the hapless bride put it on, she was consumed with fire, she 
and her father, who had rushed to extinguish the conflagration. 
After that,.the ruthless Medea murdered the children whom 
she had by Jason and fled away to Athens on a chariot 
borne by dragons which she had received from her grand- 
father the Sun.* After other adventures she is said, 
according to one account, to have returned to Colchis and 


1 Diodorus Siculus, iv. 46. 1. 


2 Apollodorus, i. 9. 23 sg. The 
murder of Apsyrtus is otherwrse related 
by Apollonius Rhodius (Azgon. iv. 
224 sg., 303-481), the Orphic poet 
(\Argonautica, 1027 sgy.), and Hyginus 
(fab, 23). See my note on Apollo- 
dorus, /.c. 


3 Apollodorus, i. 9. 27; Diodorus 
Sjculus, iv. 50-52; Pausanias, viii. 
II. 2 sg.; Hyginus, “as, 24; Ovid, 
Metamorph, vii. 297-349. 

4 Apollodorus, i. 9. 28; Diodorus 
Siculus, iv. 54; Hyginus, Fad, 25. 
These events are the subject of 
Euripides’ great tragedy, Medea, 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 475 


closed a long career of crime by murdering her paternal 
uncle Perses; though some say that the murder was per- 
petrated, not by her, but by her hopeful son Medus, who 
would seem to have been a chip of the old block." 

Such in brief was the discreditable career of some 
children of the Sun. 

Of a direct worship of the Sun there are comparativeiy The wor- 
few records in Greek literature. In one passage Homer ee ee eng 
speaks of a white ram to be offered by the Trojans to the Greece. 
Sun, along with a black ewe to be offered to the Earth, the 
sex of the victim being clearly adapted to that of the deity, 
while a similar adaptation of colour is indicated by assigning 
a white victim to the Sun and a black one to the Earth.” 
Elsewhere we read in Homer of a boar being sacrificed to 
Zeus and the Sun in confirmation of an oath.’ In a passage 
of the Lazs, where Plato sets himself seriously to combat Plato on 
the shocking impiety of those who denied the existence of Lae 
the gods, he seems to say that the habit of praying and the Sun. 
doing obeisance to the rising and setting Sun and Moon was 
practically universal among Greeks and barbarians alike, 
though, like the recitation of the spells which they had heard 
from their nurses and sucked in with their mother’s milk, 
the good old custom had apparently gone out of fashion 
with the pert young jackanapes who presumed to question 
the fundamental truths of religion. These scapegraces and’ 
ne’er-do-weels the philosopher proceeds to admonish in 
fatherly style, telling them that they are by no means the 
first, as they imagine, to hold these pestilent opinions, and 
that they will certainly know better when they are older, 
for that there was no such thing as an aged atheist. These 
sound principles the senile philosopher might have illustrated 
by the practice of his master Socrates ; for elsewhere he has 
described how on one occasion, after standing a whole day 
and night plunged in profound meditation, Socrates was seen 
at sunrise to pray to the rising luminary and then to go on his 
way. The ordinary Greek mode of saluting the rising Sun was 
to kiss the hand to it.° In the beautiful essay /x prazse of 


1 Apollodorus, i. 9. 28; Diodorus 4 Plato, Laws, x. 3, pp. 887 c- 
Siculus, iv. 56. 1; Hyginus, /ad, 27. 888 b. 

Br Homer,.//; il.. 103 's7, & Plato, Sywepostum, 36, p. 220C D. 

3 Homer, //, xix. 196 sg., 249-268. ® Lucian, De sa/tatione, 17. 


476 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cCuap. 


Fatherland, which passes under the name of Lucian, though 
it breathes a warmer spirit and strikes a deeper note 
than we expect to find in the writings of that cold, though 
brilliant, wit and sceptic, we read that every man must look 
on the Sun as his own paternal deity because he saw it for 
Plutarchon the first time from his own fatherland.’ And referring to the 
pi dail preposterous notion that the Sun and Moon are mere lifeless 
bodies, the pious Plutarch informs us that all men worship 
these luminaries and offer prayer and sacrifice to them.’ 
One of the articles in the accusation of Socrates was that he 
did not believe in the divinity of the Sun and Moon, and 
that he inculcated on the minds of the youth of Athens the 
damnable doctrine that the Sun was nothing but a stone and 
the Moon nothing but earth. In his defence the philosopher 
did not directly deny the charge but parried it by declaring 
that the heresy in question was to be found in the writings 
of Anaxagoras, which any young man could buy at a book- 
stall for a shilling.® 
Local cults Certainly the Sun was worshipped in various parts of 
rs pahian Greece, but for the most part these cults appear to have 
been of only subordinate importance. We have seen that, 
according to tradition, flocks of sheep sacred to the Sun 
used always to pasture on the promontory of Taenarum in 
Worship of Laconia, and that flocks of sheep dedicated to the solar 
eeu '" deity were kept by the people of Apollonia in Epirus 
down at least to the time of Herodotus.* Sacred to 
the Sun was a peak of Taygetus, the splendid range 
of mountains which dominates the vale of Sparta and 
from its long line of glistering snow-capped crests reflects at 
morning the beams of the rising sun, while the deep purple 
shadows still brood on the slopes below. On this holy 
pinnacle the Spartans used to sacrifice horses to the bright orb 
of day.” Perhaps they thought that at noon, passing over 
the mountains, the deity used to rein in his weary steeds and 
yoke these fresh horses to his golden car, before he drove 


1 Lucian, Patriae encomium, 6. ficed a horse on Mount Taygetus to 
2 Plutarch, Adversus Coloten,. 27. the winds and burned the body of the 
3 Plato, Apolog. 14, p. 26 C-E. animal, in order that the winds should 
4 See above, p. 469. carry the ashes all over the country. 
5° Pausanias, iii. 20. 4. According ‘This is probably the sacrifice mentioned 


to Festus (s.v.‘* October equus”, p. 190 by Pausanias, though the interpretation 
ed. Lindsay), the Lacedaemonians sacri- __ of it is different. 


BE = 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 477 


down the slope of heaven and plunged at evening into the 
waves of the incarnadined sea. On the other side of the 
range, in the bleak and savage country which intervenes 
between the mountains and the sea, there was a place called 
Thalamae, where the sea-goddess Ino had an oracular sanc- 
tuary. In the open part of the sanctuary stood a bronze 
image of the Sun and another of Pasiphae, whom the Greek 
traveller Pausanias understood to be the Moon, an interpre- 
tation according well with the name Pasiphae which means 
‘She who shines on all”. The interpretation derives some 
support from an inscription which proves that at Gytheum, 
the port of Sparta, there was a joint cult of the Sun and 
Moon and other deities, and that a priest officiated in the 
worship.” 

In Arcadia the traces of Sun-worship are few. But 
in Mantinea, situated in a flat and now marshy plain sur- 
rounded by mountains, they showed the grave of Arcas, 
the mythical hero who gave his name to Arcadia, and 
near the grave was a place called the Altars of the Sun. 
At Megalopolis, in the great western plain of Arcadia, there 
was an image of the Sun which bore the surnames of Saviour 
and Hercules.* 

In the market-place of Elis stood two marble images 
of the Sun and Moon; horns projected from the head 
of the Moon and beams from the head of the Sun.’ The 
legend of Augeas, King of Elis, lord of multitudinous 
herds of cattle, also. points to a worship of the Sun in Elis ; 
for according to one account he was himself a child of the 
Sun,° and his father the Sun had bestowed on him these 
wondrous herds, that he might be rich beyond all other men 
in cattle, and the god himself looked to it that the kine 
throve and multiplied from year to year, free from murrain 
and wasting sickness.’ The poet Theocritus has given us 


1 Pausanias, iii. 26. I. 3 Pausanias, vill. 9. 4. 

2 Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, 4 Pausanias, viii. 31. 7. 
No. 1392 (vol. i. p. 671). The other BaTyeaniastevine 46. 
deities associated with the Sun and A hes ieee 
Moon are Zeus the Counsellor, Aescu- Pausanias, v. 1. 95 Apollodorus, 1). 
lapius, and Health. The inscription 5: 53 Theocritus, xxv. 543 J. Tzetzes, 
is of the Imperial age. Compare S.  C/#/ades, it. 279 sg.; Hyginus, “ad. 
Wide, Lakonische Kulte (leipzig, 14» P- 42, ed. Bunte. 
1893), p. 215. 7 Theocritus, xxv. 118 sgq. 


Worship of 
the Sun in 
Arcadia, 


Images of 
theSun and 
Moon at 
Elis. 


Temple 

and altars 
of the Sun 
in Argolis. 


Sacrifice to 
the rising 
Sun. 


Worship of 
the Sun at 
Corinth. 


478 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHaAp. 


a graphic description of the cows and the sheep of Augeas 
as they came home at sunset, trooping in their thousands 
and filling all the plain with their jostling multitudes and 
all the air with their lowing.’ Among them, he tells us, 
were twelve bulls, white as swans, and sacred to the Sun.” 
On a certain day, when the sun was low in the west, 
the women of Elis used to lament for Achilles ;* but 
this does not imply that they identified the dead hero with 
the setting sun, for it was a rule of Greek religion to 
sacrifice to the dead at sunset, but to the heavenly gods at 
sunrise.* At Olympia there was a common altar of the 
Sun and Cronus.° 

At Hermion, on the coast of Argolis, there was a temple 
of the Sun:° at Troezen, on the same coast, an altar of the 
Sun of Freedom stood near a temple of Wolfish Artemis ;7 
and in the Argolic plain, on the way from Mycenae to Argos, 
there was another altar of the Sun.2 At Sicyon, also, an 
altar of white marble dedicated to the Sun stood near a 
sanctuary of Hera.” When the people of Cleonae, a little 
town to the south-west of Corinth, were afflicted by a 
pestilence, the Delphic oracle advised them to sacrifice a he- 
soat to the rising Sun. They did. so, and the plague was 
stayed. In gratitude for their deliverance they sent a bronze 
he-goat as a thank-offering to the Delphic Apollo, whom, 
like many people in ancient and modern times, they seem to 
have identified with the Sun.”° 

The city of Corinth was associated in a_ particular 
manner with the myth and worship of the Sun; indeed one 
of its names was Helioupolis, that is, the City of the Sun." 
It is said that the Sun disputed the possession of the country 
with the Sea-god Poseidon, and that, the dispute being 
submitted to the arbitrament of Briareus, he assigned the 
isthmus to Poseidon, while he awarded to the Sun the 
precipitous and lofty height which towers above the isthmus 


1 Theocritus, xxv. 85 sgq. 5 Pausanias, ii. 34. 10, 
2 Theocritus, xxv. 129-131. 7 Pausanias, ii. 31. 5. 
3 Pausanias, vi. 23. 3. 8 Pausanias, ii. 18. 3. 
* Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, 9 Pausanias, ii. IT. 1. 
Argon, i. 587. 1) Pausanias, x. II. 5. 
5 Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. UMs, 1 Stephanus-Byzantius, s.vv, ‘HAcov- 


p. 426, lines 17 sgq. mods and Képwéos. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS — 479 


and became in later ages the citadel of the city.’ Yet 
afterwards, according to the Corinthians, the Sun resigned 
this imposing stronghold to the goddess of love, Aphrodite.” 
Hence on the summit, which commands magnificent views 
over the blue Saronic Gulf on the one side and the blue 
Gulf of Corinth on the other, with the lilac-tinted mountains 
of Attica and Boeotia looming sharp and clear through the 
crystalline air in the distance, there stood a temple of 
Aphrodite and an image of the Sun.’ Lower down the steep Imagesand 
slope were altars of the Sun;‘ and in the city itself there {t'So"'" 
was a portal surmounted by two gilded chariots, one bearing Corinth. 
an image of the Sun and the other an image of Phaethon, 
the ill-fated child of the Sun.2 On some Corinthian coins of 
the Imperial age the portal is represented, with a four-horse 
chariot or chariots above it; on pthers we see the Sun-god 
driving his car.° Another legend which connected Corinth 
with the Sun was that the Sun-god had bestowed the land, 
under its ancient name of Ephyraea, on his son Aeétes, who 
reigned over it before he departed to assume the kingdom of 
Colchis.’ | 

At Athens inscriptions prove that there was a regular Worship of 
worship of the Sun, conducted by a priestess who had a ‘ve Sun 
special seat in the theatre of Dionysus.2 There was also a 
priest of the Sun at Athens. On the twelfth day of the month 
Scirophorion, which seems to have fallen about Midsummer 
Day, a festival called Scira was celebrated, at which the 
priest of the Sun, the priest of Poseidon-Erechtheus, and the Tne priest 
priestess of Athene went in procession from the Acropolis ° he Su». 
to a place called Scirum, situated at a short distance from 
Athens on the road to Eleusis. In this procession the 
priest of Poseidon-Erechtheus carried a large white umbrella, 
perhaps as a protection against the heat of the midsummer 
sun, which beats down fiercely from the cloudless Attic 
heaven.’ Again, at the Attic festivals of the Pyanepsia and 


1 Pausanias, ii. I. 6, F xcvii, xcvili, xcix, c, Ci, cil. 
2 Pausanias, li, 4. 6. 7 Eumelus, cited by Pausanias, ii. 
3 Pausanias, ii. 5. 1. 3.110, 
4 Pausanias, ii, 4. 6. 8 Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, 
5 'Pausanias, ii! 3. 2. iii. Nos, 202, 313; AeAtlov dpxato- 
6 F, Imhoof-Blumer and Percy Aoyxdy, 1889, pp. 19 59. 

Gardner, 4 Numismatic Commentary 9 Harpocration, s.v, Zxlpov; Suidas 


on FPausanias, p. 22, with Plate and Photius, Lexzcon, s.vv, Zxlpov and 


Procession 
in honour 
of the Sun 
and of the 
Seasons. 


Wineless 
sacrifices to 
theSunand 
Moon. 


480 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cnap. 


Thargelia the Athenians performed ceremonies in honour of 
the Sun and the Seasons. On these occasions boys carried 
in procession branches of olive or laurel wreathed with wool 
and loaded with ripe fruits of the season, and they hung 
the branches over the doors of houses as a charm to avert 
dearth and ensure plenty.’ This procession in honour of the 
Sun and the Seasons used regularly to wind through the 
streets of Athens down to the time of Porphyry in the third 
century of our era; for that advocate of vegetarianism and 
adversary of Christianity, in speaking of the bloodless 
sacrifices of the olden time, cites with approval this same 
Athenian procession in honour of the Sun and the Seasons 
as still to be witnessed in his day; and he enumerates the 
various sorts of vegetable produce which were carried in it, 
including barley, wheat, and acorns or branches of oak.’ 
The ancient antiquary Polemo tells us that the sacrifices 
which the Athenians offered to the Sun and Moon, to 
Memory and various other deities, were “sober”, that is wine- 
less ;* and though he assigns no motive for the rule we may 
reasonably suppose that it was intended to guard against 
the intoxication of these deities, for it requires no great 
stretch of imagination to picture to ourseives the catastrophes 
which would inevitably ensue if the Sun and Moon were 
tipsy when they drove their chariots across the sky. Indeed, 
this very explanation of the custom was given by the ancients 
themselves ; for the historian Phylarchus tells us that “among 
the Greeks persons who sacrifice to the Sun pour libations 
of honey, but do not bring wine to the altars, alleging that 
the god who holds together and controls the universe ought 
to keep strictly sober”.* The rule is illustrated and con- 
firmed by an inscription which refers to the sacrifices to be 
offered in the temple of Aesculapius at the Piraeus. In it 


for the festival. The ripe fruits of the 
season appear to be decisive in favour 


Xklpos; Scholiast on Aristophanes, 
Knights, 18. _ As to the festival, com- 


pare Aug. Mommsen, Fes/e der Stadt 
Athen (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 504 s¢¢.3 
and my note on Pausanias, i. 36. 4 
(vol. ii, pp. 488 s7.). 

1 Scholiast on Aristophanes, Avzghds, 
729, and Plutus, 1054. The scholiasts 
hesitate as usual bet ween Aiuds(‘‘dearth”) 
and domuds (‘‘ pestilence”) as the motive 


of the former interpretation, Compare 
Aug. Mommsen, /este der Stadt Athen, 
pp. 279, 480 sg. 

2 Porphyry, De abstinentia, ii. 7. 

3 Polemo, quoted by the Scholiast 
on Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus, 100. 

4 Phylarchus, quoted by Athenaeus, 
xv. 48, p. 693 EP. 


i 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 481 


we read of honeycombs sacrificed to the Sun and to 
Memory, and the altars at which these “sober” sacrifices 
were offered are themselves called “sober ”,’ doubtless because 
no libations of wine were poured upon them. 

In the island of Cos we hear of an altar dedicated to the Altars of 
Sun ;? and in the island of Cyprus there were altars and @¢ St" 
precincts consecrated in common to the Sun and Zeus.° Cyprus. 
At Mopsuestia in Cilicia an inscription records a dedication 
to the Sun and the people.* At Pergamum there would Worship of 
seem to have been a regular worship of the Sun, for there \r?2u" 
was an altar to that deity in the sanctuary of Demeter, and gamum. 
an inscription records a dedication to “the Sun, the Highest 
God”. Another Pergamene inscription commemorates the 
dedication of an image of the Sun on horseback, with a sup- 
pliant standing beside the horse. This mode of representing 
the Sun riding a horse instead of mounted in a chariot is 
proved by many sculptured reliefs to have been common in 
Asia Minor, though it was foreign to purely Greek art.® 
_ The island of Rhodes was deemed sacred to the Sun, worship of 
and its inhabitants worshipped the Sun above all the other Pe Sua 
gods, looking upon him as the ancestor and founder of their 
race. The myth ran that the Sun fell in love with the Myths of 
nymph or goddess Rhodos and named the island and thet? 
people after her. But the truth, according to the rationalistic the Sun to 
historian Diodorus Siculus, was this. In the beginning the "°° 
island was marshy; but the rays of the sun dried up the 
superfluous moisture, and the plastic soil produced, by a sort 
of spontaneous generation, seven men known as.the Heliades 
or Children of the Sun, who became the ancestors of the 
Rhodians. These seven Children of the Sun had a sister 

1 ’Ednuepis dpxacodoy:xy, 1885, p.  Luscriptions of Cos (Oxford, 1891), 
88; Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, pp. 116, No, 64. 
iii. No. 1651; G. Dittenberger, Sy//oge 3 Julian, Or. iv. pp. 135 D, 143 D. 
Inscriptionum Graecarum*, No. 1040; 4 W. Froehner, Les; Luscriptions 
Ch. Michel, Recuezl ad’Inscriptions Grecgues du Louvre (Paris, 1880), p. 30, 
Grecgues, No. 672; E. S. Roberts No. 17. P 
and E, A. Gardner, Jxtroduction to Ps Jessen, | s.v,-‘* Helios’, in Pauly- 
Greek Epigraphy, Part Il. (Cambridge, | Wissowa, Aeal-Encyclopadie der classt- 
1905) p. 379, No. 133; J. de Prott schen Altertumswissenschaft, viii. 1. col. 
et L. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum Sacrae 69, referring for the inscription to Fran- 
e titulis collectae, Pars Altera (Leipzig, kel, /schref/ten von Pergamon, 330. 
1906), p. 71, No. 18. 6 G, Dittenberger, Sy//oge IJnscrip- 


tionum Graecarum*, No. 754, with 
2 W. R. Paton and E, L. Hicks, Dittenberger’s note, 


VOL, I Zi 


482 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuapr. 


named Electryone, but she died a maid and so left no 
posterity behind her; however, the Rhodians accorded her 
heroic honours.) One of the Seven, whose name Actis 
means Beam of Light, is said to have migrated to Egypt 
and there founded Heliopolis, or the City of the Sun, which 
he named after his father.2 A more poetical account of the 
association of the Sun with Rhodes is given by Pindar. 
According to him, while Zeus and the other gods were 
parcelling out the earth among themselves, the Sun was 
absent and the island of Rhodes had not yet appeared, 
being still buried at the bottom of the sea. When the 
Sun remonstrated with Zeus on being thus left out in the 
cold, Zeus offered to draw the lots over again, but the Sun 
refused, declaring that he could discern a goodly and a 
fruitful land growing up from the depths of the green 
water, and he desired that it might be granted to him 
as his share. His request was granted; the island of 
Rhodes emerged from the waves, and was made over as a 
possession to the Sun-god, the lord of fire-breathing steeds. 
There the bright deity met the nymph or goddess Rhodos 
in love’s dalliance and begot on her his seven sons, the wisest 
of the men of old.® 
But of the actual worship of the Sun in Rhodes very 
evidence of f&W details have come down to us, and these mostly brief 
theworship notices in inscriptions. A sacred precinct of the Sun is 
o Rta, mentioned in a Rhodian inscription dating from about 
51 A.D.* Another inscription of the Roman period records 
the dedication of an offering to the Sun in fulfilment of 
a vow made after an earthquake;° another commemorates 
the sacrifice of a white or red kid to the Sun.6 The priests 


Luscrip- 
tional 


1 Diodorus Siculus, v. 56. 3-5.  chischen Dialekt-Inschriften, No. 3753 


Compare Aristides, Or, xhiv. vol. i. 
p. 840, ed. Dindorf. 

2 Diodorus Siculus, v. 57. 2. 

3 Pindar, Olymp, vii. 54-73. Com- 
pare Aristides, Ov. xliii, vol. i, p. 807 
ed. Dindorf. 


4 Inscriptiones Graecae Insularum 
Rhodi Chalces Carpatht cum Saro Cast, 
ed. F. Hiller de Gaertringen (Berlin, 
1895), No. 2, pp. 2 sg.3; H. Collitz 
und F, Bechtel, Sammlung der grie- 


(vol, iii. 1, p. 420), Compare Xenophon 
Ephesius, Aphesiac. v. 10. 

5 Inscriptiones Graecae Insularum 
Rhodi, etc., No. 22, p. 14. 

8 Inscriptiones Graecae Insularum 
Rhodi, etc., No. 892, p. 146; H. 
Collitz und F, Bechtel, Sammlung der 
eriechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, No. 
4226 (vol. iii, 1. p. 564); J. de Prott | 
et L. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum Sacrae 
é titult's colleciae, Pars Altera, No. 149 


p. 365. . 


WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 483 


of the Sun are often mentioned in the inscriptions.’ One 
inscription records a decree of the Rhodians that “ prayers 
should be offered by the priests and the sacrificers to the 
Sun and Rhodos and all the other gods and goddesses and 
to the founders and the heroes, who have in their keeping 
the city and the country of the Rhodians”.? From the 
inscriptions we learn that the priests did not hold office for 

life ; indeed the tenure of the priesthood was only for one 

year, and the year was named after the priest.’ 

The principal festival of the Sun in Rhodes was called Halieia,the 
the Halieia or Haleia, from alos, the Doric form of the fant ae 
name for the sun. It is occasionally mentioned by classical] Rhodes, 
writers,’ and oftener in inscriptions. In one of these inscrip- 
tions mention is made of the Great Halieia and the Little 
Halieia,> and it is probable that the Little Halieia was an 
annual celebration, and that the Great Halieia is to be 
identified with the Dipanamia Halieia, which is known to 
have been a quadrennial festival held every fourth year, so 
that three years intervened between two successive celebra- 


XII 


tions. The quadrennial festival is believed to have been 


1 Inscriptiones Graecae Insularum 
Rhodi, etc., Nos. 65, 833 (pp. 32, 
132); HH. Collitz und F. Bechtel, 
Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt- 
Inschrifien, Nos. 3756, 3798, 3799, 
3800, 3801, 4190 (vol. ili, I. pp. 
422 sg., 460 sg., 552); G. Ditten- 
berger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graeca- 
rum, No. 723 (vol. ii. p. 380). 

2 P. Cauer, Delectus Inscriptionum 
Graecarum propter dialectum memora- 
bilium? (Leipzig, 1883), No. 181, 
p. 123; Ch. Michel, Recuetl a’ /nscrip- 
tions Grecques, No. 21, p. 24; H. 
Collitz und F, Bechtel, Sammlung der 
griechiscthen Dialekt-Inschriften, No. 
3749 (vol. iii. 1. p. 412). 

3 G, Dittenberger, Sy/loge Inscrip- 
tionum Graecarum*, No, 723 (vol. ii. 
p. 380); Ch. Michel, Aecuetl a’ln- 
scriptions Grecgues, No. 874, pp. 715 
sqg.3; J. de Prott et L. Ziehen, Leges 
Graecorum Sacrae e tttulis collectae, 
Pars Altera, No. 147, p. 362; Chr. 
Blinkenberg, Za Chronique du Temple 
Lindien (Copenhagen, 1912), pp. 340, 
341; Jessen, s.v. ‘* Helios”, in Pauly- 


Wissowa, Real-Encyclopidie der classt- 
schen Altertumswissenschaft, viii, 1. 
coll, 66 sq. 

4 Athenaeus, xiii. 12, p. 561 E; 
Aristides, Ov. xlili. vol. i. p. 808, ed. 
Dindorf, Compare Xenophon Ephesius, 
Ephestac. v. 11, who mentions a magni- 
ficent public festival at Rhodes, includ- 
ing a procession and a sacrifice and 
attended by a multitude of people. 
This was no doubt the Halieia. As to 
the festival compare M. P. Nilsson, 
Griechische Feste von religiiser Be- 
deutung mit Ausschluss der attischen 
(Leipzig, 1906), pp. 427 sg. 

5 G. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscrip- 
tionum Graecarum, No. 1067 (vol. 
lily pp. 222 57.). 

6 G. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscrip- 
tionum Graecarum*, No, 724 (vol. ii. 
p. 381); Luscriptiones Graecae Jnsula- 
rum Rhodi, etc., No, 730, pp. 106 sg.; 
Ch. Michel, Recueil? ad’ /nscriptions 
PHECIHES NOLO 75s DD a7 L Oo SGss 
H. Collitz und F. Bechtel, Sammlung 
der grtechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, 
No, 4135 (vol, iii, I. p. 530). 


Chariot 
and horses 
thrown into 
the seaasa 
sacrifice to 
the Sun. 


Founda- 
tion of 
the city 

of Rhodes. 


484 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuav. 


called Dipanamia because it was celebrated in the intercalary 
month Panamus, which was inserted every fourth year 
immediately after the ordinary month of the same name, 
so that in that year there were two months named Panamus 
and the festival was held in the second of them.’ It included 
athletic contests, and from the inscriptions which record 
victories in the contests we learn that among the games 
were wrestling matches and chariot races.* From another 
source we gather that every year the Rhodians used to 
throw into the sea a chariot drawn by four horses as an 
offering to the Sun, because the Sun-god was supposed 
to drive round the world in such a car.* No doubt the 
ceremony was observed at the annual festival of the Halieia, 
and the chariot and horses were intended to furnish the Sun- 


god with a new car and a fresh team to replace those which — 


had been worn out by the daily journey across the sky. 
May not the chariot and horses thus cast into the sea have 
been those which had just won the victory in the racecourse ? 
Their superior swiftness would naturally mark them out for 
the service of the Sun. So at Rome it was a horse of the 
victorious team which was specially selected for sacrifice 
to Mars.* 

In or about the year 408 B.c. the three ancient and 
formerly independent Rhodian cities of Camirus, Ialysus, and 
Lindus united to found the new city of Rhodes, near the 
extreme northern point of the island. 
three cities in a single State marks the beginning of what we 
may call the Golden Age of Rhodes, which by virtue of its 
strong insular position, extensive commerce, and powerful 
navy acquired, in the declining age of Greek independence, a 
position of political importance comparable to that of Venice 
in the middle ages. The analogy is rendered all the closer 


This union of the. 


1 This is the explanation of the 
name suggested by F. Hiller von 
Gaertringen (G, Dittenberger, Sy//oge?, 
No. 609 = Sy/loge?, No. 724) and 
accepted by P. Stengel (Pauly- Wissowa, 
Real-Encyclopadie der  classischen 
Altertumswissenschaft, v. 1. coll, 1151 
5.g., 5.0. Atravdyua), Compare G. F. 
Schoemann, Griechische Alterthiimer 4 


(Berlin, 1897-1902), ii. 557. 


2 Inscriptiones Graecae Insularum 
Rhodt, etc.; Nos.) 72,093; .7asae 
(pp. 34 sg.); H. Collitz und F, Bechtel, 
Sammlung der griechischen Dtalekt- 


Inschriften, Nos. 3807, 3808, 3809, © 


3810 (vol. iii. 1. pp. 462-464). 

3 Festus, s.v. ‘‘October equus”, 
p. 190 ed. Lindsay. 

4 Festus, Le. 

5 Diodorus Siculus, xiii. 75. 1, 


ie. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 


485 


by the oligarchical constitution of the Rhodian State and the 
architectural and artistic splendour of the capital, which was 
laid out by the same architect, Hippodamus, who had 
planned the Piraeus, and which survived in all its glory to 
the reign of Augustus when the Piraeus lay in ruins.’ 

With the foundation of the new city of Rhodes the The Sun 
Rhodians started a new coinage, of which the principal types Senate 
were the Head of the Sun-god and the Rose; for the Greek emblems of 
word for rose (rhodon) being almost identical with the name rine 
of the island (Rhodos), the flower naturally suggested itself 
as a fitting emblem of the State. Thus Rhodes was the 
island at once of the Sun and the Rose. On the coins the 
full face of the Sun-god is portrayed beardless, with strong 
and noble features, his ample locks curling about his forehead 
and sometimes encircled by rays. The rose is represented 
less full blown than modern roses at their prime and often 
with a rosebud beside it.’ 

But the great pride of Rhodes was the huge bronze The 
statue of the Sun-god, which was executed by the sculptor SNe 
Chares, a native of Lindus in Khodes and a pupil of of the 
a Sun-god at 
Lysippus. He spent twelve years in constructing it. The pghodes, 
cost amounted to three hundred talents and was defrayed by 
the sale of the siege engines which Demetrius Poliorcetes left 
behind after his memorable but unsuccessful siege of Rhodes. 

The height of the statue is stated by Pliny to have been 
seventy cubits. Sixty-six years after its erection the statue 
was thrown down by an earthquake and remained prostrate 
in the time of Pliny, who, to give us an idea of its immense 
size, says that few men could encircle the thumb with their 
arms, and that the fingers were larger than most statues. 
Through the yawning crevasses in the enormous figure the 
spectator could see in the interior the great rocks by which 
the sculptor had sought to impart stability to the image.’ 


- 1 Strabo, xiv. 2. 5 and 9; Harpo- 
cration, s.v. ‘Immodduea (as to the 
name of the architect). 


a poet of the Greek Anthology 
(Anthologia Palatina, vi, 171), Lucian 
(Iupiter Tragoedus, 11), Suidas (s.v. 


2 B. V. Head, Historia Numorum 
(Oxford, 1887), pp. 538-542. 

3 Pliny, Mat, Hist. xxxiv. 41. Pliny 
does not mention the material of which 
the statue was made; but that the 
material was bronze is mentioned by 


Kodogcaeis), a scholiast on Lucian 
(/carom. 12), and Hyginus (/aéd, 223). 
The scholiast on Lucian (/.c.) agrees 
with Pliny in giving the height as 
sixty cubits, but he erroneously states 
that the statue was a work of Lysippus. 


Lucian 

on the 
Colossus 
of Rhodes. 


486 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN: PEOPLES: Citi® 


Another estimate of the height of the statue was one hundred 
and five fect.’ In falling, the Colossus broke off at the knees, 
and the Khodians, in consequence of an oracle, refrained from 
attempting to set it up again,” although Ptolemy, King of 
Egypt, promised to contribute no less than three thousand 
talents to its restoration.2 The image, popularly known as 
the Colossus, was reckoned one of the Seven Wonders of the 
World.* The date of its erection is believed to have been 
about 284 B.C.” | 

Often as the Colossus is mentioned by ancient writers, 
not one of them has told us where exactly the image stood 
or in what attitude the Sun-god was represented. The story 
that the image bestrode the mouth of the harbour, and that 
ships sailed under its straddling legs, is a modern fancy.° 
But from a passage of Lucian we may infer with some 
probability that the god was represented, not in his chariot, 
but as a single standing figure, as indeed is almost implied 
by the statement of Strabo that, in falling, the image broke 
off at the knees. In the passage of Lucian the Colossus of 
Rhodes is introduced speaking in his own person. It appears 
that Zeus had been greatly perturbed by a public discussion 
held the day before between a Stoic and an Epicurean 
philosopher, in which the Epicurean had roundly declared 
that the gods did not exist, and though the Stoic had 
put in a plea for their existence, no conclusion had been 
reached and the meeting had broken up in disorder. Smart- 
ing under the reflection thus cast on the divine nature, Zeus 
summoned an assembly of the gods in order to determine 
what was to be done in this emergency. The deities 
answered to the call, and arrangements were made for seating 
them in the order of merit according to the fineness of 
the material of which they were wrought and the degree 


The passages of ancient writers re- 
ferring to the image are collected by 
]. Overbeck, Die antiken Schrifiguellen 
sur Geschichte der biltdenden Atinste 
ber den Grtechen (Leipzig, 1868), Nos. 
1539-1554, pp. 291-294. 


EP estussos.c.a Colossusiia 0.0.59 
ed. Lindsay, But according to Hyginus 
(/‘ab, 223), the height was ninety feet, 


which agrees closely with the estimate 
of sixty cubits. 

2 otra bo, svi. Ge 

3 Polybius, v. 89. 

* Strabo, xiv. 2. 5; Hyginus, Faé, 
207) 

5 J. Overbeck, Geschichte der grie- 
chischen Plastik’ (Leipzig, 1893-1894), 
OR A 

6 J. Overbeck, Z.c. 





XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 487 


of artistic finish bestowed upon them by the sculptor, The 
front row of seats was naturally reserved for the golden gods ; 
the second row was assigned to the silver gods, and the 
third to the ivory gods; the bronze and marble gods had 
to take what seats they could find in the fourth row, the 
order of precedence between them not being settled; while 
the riff-raff of deities, made of wood, earthenware, or such like 
base material, were left to scuffle among themselves for places 
in the rear. Now according to this arrangement the Colossus 
would have to take a back seat in the fourth row, since he 
was made of bronze. But against the slight thus put on him 
the burly deity entered an indignant protest, arguing that 
with the money spent in making him the Rhodians could 
have made sixteen golden gods of the usual size ; so that on 
the simple ground of weight, to say nothing of the fineness 
of his workmanship, he was fully entitled to sit with the best 
of the gods in the front row of the stalls. To this plea Zeus 
demurred. In an aside to Hermes, who was acting as usher, 
he observed rather testily, “ Why does the fellow come here 
to make a disturbance in the stalls and cast a slur on the 
rest of us for not being so big as he?” Then turning to the 
Colossus, with a forced air of politeness he pointed out to him 
the serious practical difficulty involved in his proposal. “If 
you sit down in the front row,” he said, “all the other gods 
will have to stand up, since one half of your person would 
cover the whole place of popular assembly at Athens. So 
you had much better just keep standing, and stoop over the 
assembly when you want to see what is going on.”? 
The great Greek god Apollo has often been identified The | 

with the Sun-god both in ancient and modern times, but 4°?" 


the identification would appear to have been the fruit Srarapel 
philosophic thought rather than an article of popular faith. ith 
Thus the early philosophers Parmenides and Empedocles result of | 
seem to have explained Apollo as equivalent to the Shite deans 
It is said that Orpheus did not honour Dionysus, but that to». 
he regarded the Sun, which he identified with Apollo, as 
the greatest of the gods, and he used to rise by night and 
ascend Mount Pangaeum that he might catch the first glimpse 

1 Lucian, Jupiter Tragoedus, 1-11. sokratiker 2,’ i, (Berlin, 1906) p. 108, 

2H. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vor- frag. 20, p. 157, frag. 23. 


Apollo 
identified 
with the 
Sun-god by 
late Greek 
writers. 


Pausanias 
on the 
identi- 
fication of 
Apollowith 
the Sun. 


488. WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHA?. 


of the rising luminary. Hence Dionysus was angry with 
him, and sent the Bacchanals, who tore him limb from limb 
and scattered his mangled remains." The Cynic philosopher 
Crates also identified Apollo with the Sun.” . The speculative 
poet Euripides, who loved to resolve the traditional Greek 
gods into natural phenomena, puts into the mouth of 
Clymena the saying, that he who knows the secret names of 
the deities is aware that the true name of the Sun is Apollo, 
in the sense of the Destroyer (Ajpollyon), since he had been 
the undoing of her and of Phaethon, the ill-fated son whom 
she had borne to the Sun-god.2. The philosopher Cornutus, 
who wrote a compendium of Greek mythology in the first 
century of our era, announced, without hesitation or beating 
about the bush, that Apollo was the sun and Artemis the 
moon." | 

The identification of Apollo with the Sun-god is re- 
peatedly mentioned by Plutarch as an ancient and popular — 
doctrine ; in a passage of a dialogue he reports a remark 
that “all the Greeks, so to say, hold Apollo to be identical 
with the Sun”.© A contemporary of Plutarch, the eloquent 
rhetorician Dio Chrysostom, in a speech addressed to the 
Rhodians, remarks that “some people say that Apollo and 
the Sun and Dionysus are the same, and you think so too”.® 
In the dreary welter of confused thought and mystical 
aspiration which passed under the name of Orphism in later 
ages the identification of Apollo with the Sun was inevitable, 
and the solar deity might even be thankful if he did not find 
himself in worse company. One poet of this rhapsodical 
school declares that Apollo is a name of the Sun, and that the 
Sun is all the same with the leach Aesculapius.’ 

In the second century of our era the Greek antiquary 
and traveller Pausanias tells us that in the sanctuary of 
Aesculapius at Aegium in Achaia he met a Phoenician from 
Sidon who engaged him in a theological discussion. The 


1 Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Cafaster. 24, 
pp. 28 sg. ed. Olivier; scholiast on 
Caesar Germanicus, drafea, 273, pp. 
404 sy. ed. Eyssenhardt (appended to 
his edition of Martianus Capella). 

2 Scholiast on Homer, //. xviii. 239. 

3 Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta, 
ed. A. Nauck 2, p. 608, 


4 Cornutus, 7eologiae Graecae Com- 
pendium, 32. 

6 Plutarch, De E apud Delphos, 4. 
Compare 7@., De defectu oraculorum, 
42; tw., De latenter vivendo, vi. 3. 

6 Dio Chrysostom, Or, xxxi. vol. i. 
p- 347 ed. Dindorf. 

7 Orphica, ed. E. Abel, p. 217. 


xu WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT GREEKS 489 


stranger maintained that his countrymen the Phoenicians had 
juster views of the divine nature than the Greeks, and as a 
case in point he cited the Phoenician legend that Aesculapius 
had Apollo for his father, but no mortal woman for his 
mother. “For Aesculapius”, said he, “is the air, and as such 
he is favourable to the health, not only of mankind, but of 
every living thing ; and Apollo is the sun, and most rightly 
is he called the father of Aesculapius, since by ordering his 
course with due regard to the seasons he imparts to the air 
its wholesomeness.” “Agreed,” replied Pausanias, “but that 
is just what the Greeks say too. For at Titane, in the land 
of Sicyon, the same image is named both Health and 
Aesculapius, clearly because the sun’s course over the earth 
is the source of health to mankind.”* The conversation is 
probably typical of much crude rationalism which, in the later 
ages of classical antiquity, sought to find a basis for the tradi- 
tional religion in natural philosophy or in what passed for such. 
From loose and vague speculations of that sort no inference 
can be drawn as to an original identity of Apollo with the Sun. 

Yet in modern times that identity has been maintained The 
by some mythologists of repute, such as F. G. Welcker,” pean 
L. Preller,? and W. H. Roscher.*. On the other hand it was the Sun 
denied by the brilliant antiquary and historian, K. O. ehoatey 


affirmed 

Miiller,” whose too early death was one of the heaviest and denied 
. . : y modern 

losses suffered by Greek studies in the nineteenth century. scholars. 

Labouring with consuming zeal and tireless energy at the 

excavation, decipherment, and copying of inscriptions, in 

front cf the temple of Apollo at Delphi, bare-headed under 

the fierce blaze of a July sun, this great scholar was sud- 

denly struck down in the height of his intellectual powers 

and carried back unconscious to Athens to die.® In his death 


superstitious fancy might be tempted to see the vengeance of 


1 Pausanias, viiw 23. 7 sg. As to 
the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Titane 
see Pausanias, il. I1. 5 sg. For more 
evidence of the identification, or con- 
fusion, of Apollo and the Sun, see 
Macrobius, Saturn. i. 17. 7 599. 

2 ¥F. G. Welcker, Griechische Gotter- 
lehre, i. 457 599. 

3 L. Preller, Grzechische Mythologie’, 
1 230599. - 

4 W. H. Roscher, Apollon und Mars 


(Leipzig, 1873), pp. 16 sgg.3 2d@., 5.v. 
*‘ Apollon”, Ausfithrliches Lexthon der 


griechischen und rimischen Mythologie, 


il. 422 59g. 
Soke QO. Miller). 022 
(Breslau, 1844), i. 286-293. 


Dorter ? 


6 See the Memoir by his brother, 
Eduard. Miiller, prefixed to K. O. 
Miiller’s AZeine deutsche Schriften 
(Breslau, 1847-1848), i. p. xviii. 


Little 
evidence 
of Sun- 
worship in 
ancient 
Rome. 


490 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Cuap. 


the archer Apollo, shooting down at his own temple the impious 
mortal who had dared to deny his identity with the Sun. 

However, the tragic end of Karl Otfried Miiller has not 
deterred later scholars from following in his footsteps and 
rejecting the solar myth of Apollo. Among these bold 
spirits are numbered Wernicke in Germany, and Dr. 
Farnell? and Dr. Rendel Harris in England. In an essay 
by the last of these learned men Apollo appears, not 
only shorn of his sunbeams, but reduced to the level of 
a common apple-tree and bearing in his name to the last 
the unmistakeable trace of his humble origin.’ But we are 
not here concerned with the intricate problem of detecting 
the original nucleus out of which the fertile Greek imagina- 
tion evolved the complex but splendid figure of Apollo; it 
is enough for our present purpose to conclude that his 
fusion with-the Sun came rather at the end than at the 
beginning of his long mythical career.’ 


§ 5. Lhe Worship of the Sun among the Ancient Komans” 


The traces of a native worship of the Sun are even 
fewer and fainter among the ancient Romans than among 


the ancient Greeks, 


lo Wernickes) $0008 Apolion *) in 
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie der 
classtschen Altertumswissenschaft, ii. 1. 
coll. 19-21. 

2 L. R. Farnell, Zhe Cults of the Greek 
States, iv. (Oxford, 1907) pp. 136-144. 

3 Rendel Harris, 7he Ascent of Olym- 
pus (Manchester, 1917), pp. 19-55. 

4 It is true that in some cities of 
Asia Minor the Sun was_ identified 
with Apollo in later times, as we learn 
from inscriptions and coins. Thus at 
Patara, in Lycia, the name Sun Apollo 
(Zleltos Apollon) occurs in an inscrip- 
tion. See Journal of Hellenic Studies, 
x. (1889) p. 81. At Smyrna there was 
a worship of Sun Apollo Kisauloddenus, 
See G. Dittenberger, Sy/loge Inscrip- 
tionum Graecarum?, No. 996 (vol. iii. 
p. 127), where the editor remarks that 
the confusion of Apollo with the Sun 
betrays, as always, the late date of the 
inscription, And on coins of Tralles, 
of the Imperial age, there appears a 
bust of the Sun with the inscription 


In Latin calendars of the Augustan age, 


** Apollo Sun” (Apollon Helios). See 
B. Head, f/éstorva Numorum (Oxford, 
1887), p. 555. But these late identi- 


fications on Asiatic soil prove nothing — 


as to the original identity of Apollo 
and the Sun in the genuine ancient 
religion of Greece. See further on this 
point L. R, Farnell, Zhe Cults of the 
Greek States, iv. 138, 366; Jessen, 5.v. 
** Helios”, in Pauly-Wissowa, /eal- 
Lncyclopadie der classischen Altertums- 
wissenschaft, viii. 1. coll, 70, 763mm 
A. B. Cook, Zeus, ii. (Cambridge, ~ 
1925) p. 500. 

6 On this subject see L. Preller, 
Romische Mythologie, i. 324-3273 
G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der 
komer*, pp. 315-317; Franz Cumont, © 
s.v. “Sol”, in E, Daremberg= etiam 
Saglio, Dzctionnaire des Antiguztés 
Grecques et Romaines, iv. 1381-1386; — 
Fr, Richter, s.v, “Sol”, im Wy tame 
Roscher’s Ausfihrliches Lexikon der 
griechischen und rimischen Mythologie, 
ili, 1137-1152. | 





XII WORSHIP OF SUN:ANMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 491 


there is recorded, under the date of August the ninth, a Sacrifice to 
public sacrifice to the Sun (Sol Judiges) on the Quirinal fae Sa 
Hill.” The meaning of the epithet /zdiges here applied to on August 
the Sun is ambiguous and has been variously interpreted by iu 
modern scholars. If it implies that the Sun was reckoned 

among the ancient native gods known as Lz zndzgetes, which 

we may render as Indigenous Gods, it proves that among 

the Romans the worship of the Sun was of immemorial 
antiquity, for the Dz zxzdigetes belong to the oldest stratum 

of Roman religion.” On this interpretation, which is the 

most obvious and natural one, the Indigenous Sun (So/ 
fndiges) is analogous to the Indigenous Jupiter (/apzter 
Indiges), who had a sacred grove in Latium near the river 
Numicius,*? and whom Roman mythologists afterwards identi- 

fied with the deified Aeneas.* The ‘view of the great 
antiquity of the worship of the Sun at Rome has the support 

of the learned Roman antiquary Varro, who tells us that 

the Roman annals recorded the dedication of altars to the 

Sun and Moon by the old Sabine King Titus Tatius, the 
adversary and afterwards the colleague of Romulus.? More- 

over, the ancient Roman family of the Aurelii, who are said Worship of 
to have been of Sabine origin, were believed by the ancients \"° prs 
to take their name from the sun, which in the Sabine Roman 
language appears to have been called ause/: hence the 2m? i, 
original name of the family was not Aurelii but Auselii. 

On account of their worship of the Sun the family were 
granted by the Roman State a place in which they could 
sacrifice to the luminary.® 


1 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 
Vol.) 12% Pars /Prior* “(Berlin, 1893), 
Ppp. 240, 324. 

2 L. Preller, Aémische Mythologie ®, 
i, 90 sgg.3; J. Marquardt, Romesche 
Staatsverwalltung, iui.? (Leipzig, 1885), 
pp. 7 597.3; G. Wissowa, ‘*De dis 
Romanorum § indigetibus ct noven- 
sidibus ”, Gesammelte Abhandlungen 
zur romischen Religions- und Staidt- 
geschichte (Munich, 1904), pp. 175 sgy.; 
td., Religion und Kultus der Romer ?, 
pp. 18 sgg.; R. Peter, s.v. ‘* Indigita- 
menta”’, in W. H. Roscher’s dusfihr- 
liches Lextkon der griechischen und 
romischen Mythologie, ii, 129-233. 

3 Pliny, Mat. Hist. iii. 56. 


4 Livy, i. 2. 6; Servius, on Virgil, 
Wei 1. 259. 

6 Varro, De lingua Latina, v. 74. 
Compare Dionysius Halicarnasensis, 
Antiquit, Rom. ii. 50. 3; Augustine, 
De civitate Det, iv. 23. 

8 Festus, s.v. ‘‘Aureliam familiam ”’, 
p. 22 ed. Lindsay, The name azse/ 
should probably be read in Varro, De 
lingua Latina, v. 68, ‘Sol ausel guod 
ita Sabini’’, instead of with the MSS. 
‘* Sola vel guod ita Sabint”, The 
correction is due to Wissowa, Relzgzon 
und Kultus der Rimer®, p. 315, note %. 
On the etymology of the word, which 
is connected with azrora, see G.Curtius, 
Grundztige der griechischen Etymologie® 


WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CHaAp. 


492 
As part We have seen that the worship of the Sun was shared by 
alae other great branches of the Aryan stock, the Vedic Indians, 
Aryan the ancient Persians, and the ancient Greeks,’ and it appears 
Sun. to have been common to their northern kinsfolk in Europe, 
worship the Lithuanians and the Germans ;* hence we may reason- 
Mee ably infer that Sun-worship was part, though apparently a 
pea in subordinate part, of the original Aryan religion, which the 


various branches of the family after their dispersal carried 
with them to their new homes. Hence we need not suppose, 
with some modern mythologists, that the Romans were 
reduced to the necessity of borrowing the worship from 
the Greeks,’ in whose religion it had never played an 
important part. It is more probable, as Franz Cumont has 
rightly observed, that the adoration of the heavenly bodies, 
which serve to mark the seasons and. exert so great an 
influence on agriculture, existed from the beginning in the 
rustic population of Italy, as in the other branches of the 
Varre, on Indo-European family.* In favour of this view it may be 
eee noted that Varro, an eminent authority on agriculture as well 
farmer. as on mythology, at the outset of his book on farming tells 

us that he will invoke the twelve gods, not the city gods, 
male and female, whose gilded images stand in the Forum 
at Kome, but the twelve gods who are the best guides of 
husbandmen, and among them he mentions the Sun and 
Moon, “ whose seasons are observed at seed-time and harvest ”, 
immediately after Father Jupiter and Mother Earth, and 


Wissowa would explain the epithet 
Jndiges, applied to the Sun, not as an 
ancient title classing him with the old 
Di Indigetes, but as bestowed on him 
in the Augustan age in order to dis- 
tinguish him as a native Sun-god from 
the foreign Sun-gods whose worship 
became popular in Imperial times. 
See Wissowa, ‘of. cet. p. 317.3 20m 
Gesammelte Abhandlungen, pp. 180 sq. 
But the explanation seems somewhat 
forced and improbable, though it is 
accepted by Fr. Richter (s.v. ‘Sol ”, 
in W. H. Roscher’s Zexzkon, iii. 1141) 


(Leipzig, 1879), pp. 399 sg.; P. Kretsch- 
mer, Lzzlettung in die Geschichte der 
griechischen Sprache (Gottingen, 1896), 
p. 83. 

1 Above, pp. 443, 456, 461. 

2 Caesar, Bell. Gall, vi. 213 O. 
Schrader, Reallextkon der indoger- 
maneschen Altertumskunde (Strassburg, 
1901), p.472; 7d., Sprachvergleichung 
und Urgeschichte%, i, (Jena, 1906) pp. 
439 sg. ; Kk. M. Meyer, Altgermanische 
heligtonsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 
104 sg. 

3 This is the view of G. Wissowa 


ea —_" 


and W. Warde Fowler (Roman Festivals 


(Religion und Kultus der Romer ?, 
pp. 315 sgg.) and of Fr. Richter, s.zv, 
‘¢Sol”, in’ W. H. Roscher’s <Azs- 
fiihrliches Lexthkon der grtechischen 
und romischen Mythologie, iii, 1138. 


of the Period of the Republic, p. 193). 
4 Franz Cumont, 5.2... "Sol 7am 

E, Daremberg et E. Saglio, Dictionnaire 

des Antiguités Grecques et Romaines, 


iv. 1381, 


7 a a ee ee 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 493 


immediately before such genuine old Italian deities as Ceres, 
Liber, Flora, and Robigus, the god of Mildew.! So learned 
an antiquary was not likely to interpolate new-fangled Greek 
gods in the list of the divinities who were to serve as ‘guides 
to the Italian farmer. 

On the Quirinal Hill there was a temple or shrine of the Temples of 
Sun, in which couches were decked out for the accommodation Rane ae 
of the god and his divine colleagues who feasted with him ; 
on these sacred couches a place was reserved for the Evening 
Star under his genuine old Latin name of Vesperug. The 
name docs not savour of Greek influence, and the temple 
or shrine stood near the temple of the good old Sabine god 
Quirinus.”, It may well have been the shrine which in 
bygone days the Roman State had assigned to the Sabine 
family of the Aurelii or Auselii as a place where they could 
sacrifice to the Sun, from whom they took their name. 
Further, there was an ancient temple of the Sun in or near 
the Circus Maximus. When a plot to assassinate Nero in 
the Circus had been detected, special honours were paid to 
the Sun in this his old sanctuary, because he was supposed to 
have revealed the designs of the conspirators. On the gable 
of the temple there was an image of the Sun, for it was 
not thought right that the image of the god who traverses 
the open sky should be placed under a roof.? In the topo- 
graphical descriptions of Rome dating from the reign of 
Constantine the temple is called the temple of the Sun and 
Moon.* Pare 

When Augustus conquered Egypt he brought two Obelisks of 
obelisks away from Heliopolis to Rome, where he set them °°" 


f Bi transported 
up, one of them in the Circus Maximus, the other in the from Egypt 
to Rome. 
See H. Jordan, Zopographie der Stadt 
Rom itm Alterthum, i. 3, bearbeitet 
von Ch, Huelsen (Berlin, 1907), p. 115. 
But this explanation is not generally 
accepted. Compare O. Richter, 7ofo- 


1 Varro, Rerum rusticarum libre, 
i. I. 4-6. 

2 Quintilian, Zest. Oral. i. 7. 12. 

3 Tertullian, De spectaculis, 8; 
Tacitus, Avznales, xv. 74. Tacitus 


seems to say that the temple was near 
the Circus, whereas Tertullian appears 
to affirm that it stood in the middle 
of the Circus. Huelsen attempted to 
reconcile both statements by supposing 
that the temple stood originally outside 
the Circus, but was afterwards included 
within it, when the Circus was extended. 


eraphie der Stadt Rom*® (Munich, 1901), 
p- 179. 

4 F. Cumont, s.v. ‘Sol’, in Darem- 
berg et Saglio, Dictionnatre des Anti- 
guités Grecgues et Romaines, iv. 1382; 
Notitia xi., Curtosum urbts, reg. 11, in 
H. Jordan, Zopographte der Stadt Rom 
tm Alterthum, ii, (Berlin, 1871) p. 558. 


Worship of 


the Sun- 
god 
introduced 
into the 
Roman 
I:mpire 
from the 
East. 


AQ4 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLE S® CHAS 


Field of Mars.’ The obelisks still stand in Rome, though 
not in their original positions; the one which Augustus 
placed in the Circus Maximus is now in the Piazza del 
Popolo; the other, which graced the Field of Mars, now 
stands in the Piazza di Monte Citorio. [each of them bears 
an inscription which records that, after reducing Egypt to the 
condition of a Roman province, Augustus in his eleventh 
consulship (10 8.C.) dedicated the obclisk as a gift to the 
Sun.” Thus these monuments of Egyptian picty, which in 
their original home at Heliopolis had been consecrated to the 
Sun,® continued in Rome to be sacred to the solar deity. 
Indeed, the one which Augustus set up in the Field of Mars 
was turned to appropriate use, being converted into the 
gnomon of a colossal sun-dial, the face of which consisted of 
a pavement with lines inlaid in bronze and radiating from 
the obelisk as a centre, which was crowned with a gilt 
ball. The hieroglyphic inscription on the obelisk proves that 
it was originally set up by King Psammetichus (not, as Pliny 
thought, by Sesostris) about the middle of the seventh 
century before our era. In Pliny’s time the gigantic gnomon 
had ceased to mark the true solar time, which the philosopher 
attributed to a slight displacement of the obelisk either by an 
earthquake or by floods.’ 

If the worship of the Sun played but an insignificant 
part in the genuine old Roman religion, it was far otherwise 
in later times when, under the Empire, at the height of its 
power or hastening to its fall, the ancient Italian gods were 
driven into the background by an invading host of foreign 
and especially of Oriental deities, among whom the Sun-god > 
was one of the most popular. The missionaries of the 
foreign faiths which, in the decline of paganism, the 
masses of mankind eagerly embraced as substitutes for 
the outworn creeds and faded gods of Greece and Rome, 

1 Ammianus Marcellinus, xvil. 4. 12. 


For a full account of the obelisks and 
their transportation to Rome, see Pliny, 


Hf. Jordan, TZopographie der Stadt 
Rom im Alterthum, i. 3, bearbeitet 
von Ch. Huelsen, pp. 124, 610-612. . 


Nat, Hist, xxxvi. 64-73. The removai 
of the two obelisks from Ileliopolis to 
Rome is mentioned also by Strabo 
(XxVil obs 27 J 

2 HI. Dessau, Juscriptiones Latinae 
Seleciad, 4 NOo LOleM VOL Eley Dias 5 ice 


3 Pliny, Mat, Hist. xxxvi. 64. 


4 Pliny, Mat, Hist, xxxvi. 71-73; 
I{. Jordan, Zopfographie der Stadt Rom 
im Alterthum, i. 3, bearbeitet von 
Ch, Huelsen, pp. 610 sg. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 495 


were in great measure merchants and soldiers travelling 
about in pursuit of trade or shifted in regiments on military 
duty from one end of the Empire to the other. These men 
brought with them, so to say, in their bales and knapsacks 
the religious beliefs and practices which they had picked up in 
distant lands, and which they now unfolded to eager listeners 
as a new gospel, the latest message to poor trembling 
mortals from the world beyond the grave.’ A striking 
instance of Sun-worship imported by soldiers into Italy 
from the East was witnessed at the second battle of 
Bedriacum, fought in 69 A.D. between the forces of the 
rival Emperors Vitellius and Vespasian. The two armies 
met and grappled in the darkness of night. For hours the 
combat swayed to and fro, and still the issue hung in 
suspense. At last the moon rose and turned the trembling 
balance in favour of the army of Vespasian ; for shining 
behind them and full on the faces of the enemy it confused 
the sight of the one side and presented them as a visible 
target to the missiles of the other. The commander of the 
army of Vespasian seized the opportune moment to urge his 
men, and especially the Guards, to a desperate charge. Just 
then, by a fortunate coincidence, the sun rose; and the men 
of the third legion, who had their backs to the east, at once 
faced round and saluted it; for having recently served in 
Syria they had learned the habit of thus greeting the rising 
orb of day. The effect was instantaneous and decisive ; for 
the enemy, believing that they were saluting reinforcements 
coming, like the Prussians at Waterloo, to turn the tide of 
battle, wavered, broke, and fled.2 Thus the Sun-god 
crowned with victory the arms of Vespasian. 

The cool-headed Vespasian so far yielded to popular 
superstition as to consult the oracle of God on Mount 
Carmel and to heal a blind man by spitting on his eyes ;°* 
but he seems never to have testified his gratitude to the 
Sun-god for his opportune help at the most critical moment 


1 As tothe part played by merchants and the Romans, the Parthians saluted 
and soldiers in this religious propa- the rising sun, ‘‘according to their 
ganda, see below, pp. 507 sq. custom”’, and then charged the Romans 

2 Tacitus, Azs¢. iii. 22-25. Herod- witha great cheer. See Herodian, iv. 
ian has similarly described how, in a_ 15. 
desperate battle between the Parthians 3 Suetonius, Vespaszan, v.6, vii. 2 sq. 


Worship of amends for his deficiency. 


Elaga- 
balus, 
identified 
with the 
Sun, at 
Emesa in 
Syria. 


The wor- 
ship of 
Elagabalus 
introduced 
at Rome 
by his 
namesake 
the Roman 
Emperor, 


496 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 


of his career. However, if he failed in respect: for the solar 
deity, several of his successors on the throne made ample 
At Emesa in Syria there was a 
large black conical stone which was said to have fallen from 
the sky and bore the Phoenician name of Elagabalus. It 
was popularly supposed to be an image of the Sun, and was 
lodged in a great temple resplendent with gold and silver 
and precious stones. The god received the homage not 
only of the natives but of distant peoples, whose governors 
and kings sent costly offerings every year to the shrine. 
Among the rest the soldiers of a great Roman camp pitched 
in the neighbourhood used to visit the temple and admire 
the handsome young priest when, wearing a jewelled crown 
and arrayed in gorgeous robes of purple and gold, he 
tripped gracefully in the dance round the altar to the 
melody of pipes and flutes and other musical instruments.’ 
This dainty priest of the Sun, then in the full bloom of 
youth and beauty, and resembling, we are told, the ideal 
portraits of the youthful Bacchus, was the future Emperor 
Elagabalus, the most abandoned reprobate who ever sat 
upon a throne. On being elevated, at the age of fourteen, 
to the imperial dignity by the intrigues of his artful grand- 
mother and the favour of the soldiers, the stripling, whose 
original name was Bassianus, assumed the style of his 
barbarous god Elagabalus or Heliogabalus, as the name was 
also pronounced in order to suggest to Greek ears the name 
of the Sun (He/ios).” Further, the young fanatic caused the 
rude fetish of the deity to be transported from Emesa 
to Rome, where he built a great and stately temple for it 
on the Palatine beside the imperial palace. The site had 
formerly been occupied by the genuine old Roman god Orcus.® 


1 Herodian, v. 3. 4-9. As to the 
identification of Elagabalus with the 
Sun, compare Dio Cassius, Ixxvili. 


eRe : 

On the god Elagabalus see E. Meyer, 
s.uv. ‘ Elagabal”, in W. H. Roscher’s 
Ausfiihrliches Lextkon der griechischen 
und romischen Mythologie, i.1229-1231; 
F, Lenormant, s.v. ‘‘ Elagabalus”, in 
E. Daremberg et E.Saglio, Dictionnaire 
des Antiquités Grecgues et Romaines, 
li, 1. pp. 529-5313 L. Preller, Romische 


Mythologie %, ii. 399-402; G. Wissowa, 
Religion und Kultus der Romer*, pp, 
365 sg. 

2 Lampridius, He/éogabalus, i. 4-6; 
Aurelius Victor, Epztome de Caesaribus, 
23. The intrigues by which his grand- 
mother Maesa contrived to win for him 
the allegiance of the soldiers and hence 
the empire, are described by Herodian 
(Yes10-12). 

3 Lampridius, He/¢ogabalus, i, 6, iii, 
4; Herodian, v. 5. 8. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 497 


Round about the temple were set up many altars, on 
which every morning hecatombs of bulls and sheep were 
slaughtered, incense of all sorts was piled, and jars of the 
oldest and finest wines were poured, so that streams of 
mingled blood and wine flooded the pavement. And round 
the altar on the ensanguined pavement danced the emperor 
and a choir of Syrian damsels with clashing cymbals and 
droning drums, while the knights and senators stood looking 
on in a great circle, and the entrails of the sacrificial victims 
and the perfumes were carried in golden jars on the heads, 
not of menials and servitors, but of captains of armies and 
ministers of state, arrayed in the long loose-sleeved robes 
and linen shoes of Syrian prophets; for among these 
degenerate nobles it was deemed the highest honour to: be 
allowed to participate in the sacrifice.’ 

And in the height of summer, lest the Sun-god should The _ 
suffer from the excess of his own heat, the considerate St”8°° 
emperor escorted him to an agreeable suburb, where he had holidays. 
built another vast and costly temple in which the deity might 
while away the sultry months till the refreshing coolness of 
autumn should permit of his return to Rome. On these 
annual excursions to and from the country the god, or rather 
the stone, was conveyed in a chariot glittering with gold and 
jewels and drawn by six superb white horses, themselves 
resplendent in trappings of gold. No man might share the 
sacred chariot with the deity. But the emperor himself 
held the reins and. went before, walking the whole way 
backward out of respect to the god, upon whom he kept his 
_ eyes fixed, and supported on either side by his guards lest 
he should stumble and fall. The whole road was thickly 
strewed with gold dust, and on either side ran crowds waving 
torches and flinging garlands and flowers on the path. On 
reaching the summer quarters of his deity the emperor used 
to ascend certain towers which he had erected for the 
purpose, and from which he showered on the multitude 
largess in the shape of golden and silver cups, fine raiment, 
and all sorts of beasts, both wild and tame, except pigs, for 
by a law of the Phoenician religion the pious Phoenician 
emperor was bound to refrain from contact with these unclean 

1 Herodian, v. 5. 8-10. 
"VOL. I 2K 


498 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cCiar. 


animals. In the wild struggle of the crowd to profit by the 
imperial bounty many persons perished, either trampled under 
foot by their fellows or pushed by them on the levelled 
spears of the guards.’ 
Intention of It was the intention of this eminently religious but 
Elagabalus crack-brained despot to supersede the worship of all the gods, 


eaiethe not only at Rome but throughout the world, by the single 
worship Of worship of Elagabalus or the Sun. In particular he aimed, 
gods by the we are told, at concentrating the religion of the Jews, the 
HSE Samaritans, and the Christians in his new temple on the 
Palatine, which was to be the Zion of the future. In 
pursuance apparently of this policy he began operations, 
after a truly Puritanical fashion, by defiling the temple 
of Vesta and attempting to extinguish her eternal fire.’ 
But this religious reformer and champion of monotheism, 
whose infamous orgies far outdid the wildest excesses of 
Marriageof Caligula and Nero, was no believer in celibacy even for the 
pepe Supreme Being, who could not, in his opinion, reasonably be 
Cartha- expected to do without a wife. It was at once the duty and 


actarte, the pleasure of the emperor to select a consort for the deity, 
and to this delicate task he devoted as much thought and 
attention as it was in his nature to devote to anything. His 
first choice fell on Minerva, whose sacred image, known as 
the Palladium, was popularly supposed to have been rescued 
by Aeneas from the flames of Troy and transplanted to 
Rome, where the goddess was established in a temple, from 
which she had never since stirred except on a single occasion 
when she had been forced temporarily to quit the building | 
by a fire. But the emperor was not a man to stand on 
ceremony. The hallowed image was transported to the 
palace and the divine wedding was about to be celebrated, 
when it occurred to the imperial lunatic that his soft Syrian 
god might be frightened in the nuptial bower by the 
formidable aspect of a bride in armour; for Minerva could 
not be expected to lay aside her shield and spear even for 
the honeymoon. Soon second thoughts he sent to Africa for 
the image of Astarte, the great goddess of love, which Dido 
was said to have set up in Carthage when she founded the 


1 Herodian, v. 6. 6-10. 
2 Lampridius, He/zogabalus, iii. 4 sg., vi. 7. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS — 499 


city of old, and which was held in great reverence by the 
Libyans as well as by the Carthaginians. Her Phoenician 
worshippers identified her with the Moon, from which, as 
well as from her affectionate nature, the emperor concluded 
that she would be a most suitable mate for his Sun-god. So 
she came, and much treasure with her, and all the subjects of 
the empire were bidden to contribute to the dowry of the 
bride. The divine union was consummated, and all Rome 
and Italy were compelled to hold high revelry in honour 
of the wedding.’ 

But even the patience of the degenerate Romans, long Assassina- 
schooled to submission, could not for ever put up with the Ta iten 
freaks and follies, the extravagances and outrages of their Elagabalus 
dissolute and crazy emperor. They rose in rebellion, slew ey en 
him in the sordid den in which he had sought to conceal aa 
himself from their fury, dragged his body through the streets, Flaga- 
and flung it into a sewer; and when it choked the sewer >al¥s. 
they fished it out and carried it, dripping and stinking, to the 
Tiber, where they heaved it into the river, weighted with a 
stone, that the vile body might never come to the surface and 
never receive the rites of burial.» Such was the miserable 
end of the religious reformer who would have established solar 
monotheism throughout the Roman empire. Monuments of 
the attempted reformation and of the ill-starred reformer are 
extant in the shape of contemporary inscriptions which record 
dedications to the Sun-god Elagabalus,® and make mention 
of the emperor in his’ capacity of priest of that deity.* As 
for the sacred black stone, of which so much had been 
made, on the death of its namesake the emperor it was 
expelled from the city,’ and found its way back to Emesa ; 
for there the Emperor Aurelian saw it in the temple when 
he entered the city after his victory over Zenobia.° 

1 Herodian, v. 6. 3-5; Dio Cassius,  Se/ectae,No.473[sa]ecerd.amp[/.] tnvicte 
cxinord 2: Sol’s Elagaba[/‘]; No. 475 sacerdos 
2 Lampridius, He/togabalus, xvii. 1. amplissi[mus det invictt Solis) Ela- 


1-3; Herodian, xv. 8.8; Dio Cassius,  gabald; No. 2008 sacerdos am{ plis|simus 
Ixxix. 20; Aurelius Victor, Zpcfome de  tnvicti Sols Elagabali; No. 9058, 


Caesartbus, 23. sacerdos [amplissimus det tnut\cti Solrs 
3 HT. Dessau, Zascriptiones Latinae Flagabalr, 
Selectae, vol. 11. 1. p. 172, No. 4329 BU iOeeenSSIS.. PIXKIKe 2150 Te 


Soli Alagabalo, No. 4330 Sol, Elagabali, ’EXeydBados atiros éx ris ‘Pauns warta- 
No. 4332 deo Soli Alagabal, Ammudati.  mwaow éférece. 
4 H. Dessau, Jrscriptiones Latinae 8 Vopiscus, durelianus, xxv. 4. 


500 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 


Scheme Some fifty years after the disastrous attempt of 
sia: Elagabalus to establish the worship of the Sun at Rome on 


Aurelian toa new and more solid basis, the scheme was revived by the 
paar a Emperor Aurelian, a man of a very different character, in 
ofthe Sun whom the stern inflexible temper and military genius of 
at Rome. ancient Rome shone bright for a brief time, like the flicker 
of an expiring candle, in the gloomy evening of the Roman 
empire. From his youth fortune would seem to have 
marked him out as the natural champion of the Sun-god. 
His family name linked him with the Aurelii, the noble old 
Roman house who bore the name of the Sun and may 
have deemed themselves his offspring." His mother is said 
to have been a priestess of the temple of the Sun in the 
village where he was born.? Being sent on a mission to 
Persia, he received from the Persian king the gift of a cup 
on which the Sun was represented in the familiar garb and 
attitude which the future Emperor of Rome had so often 
The temple beheld in the temple where his mother ministered.2 When 
Bi peines Zenobia, the rebel Queen of the East, was defeated and 
restored by captured, her people massacred, and Palmyra, her once 
ae ues stately and beautiful ‘capital, reduced to a heap of blood- 
stained ruins, the temple of the Sun in the city shared the . 
fate of the other buildings; but Aurelian ordered that it 
should be completely restored. The despatch in which he 
conveyed the order to the officer commanding the troops at 
Palmyra has been preserved by the emperor’s biographer ; it 
runs as follows: “ Aurelian Augustus to Cerronius Bassus : 
The swords of the soldiers must be stayed. Enough of the 
people of Palmyra have been slain and cut to pieces. We 
spared not the women: we killed the children: we slaughtered 
the old men: we destroyed the peasants. To whom shall 
we leave hereafter the country and the city? The survivors 
are to be spared. For we think that so few have been 
sufficiently chastised by the condign punishment of so many. 
As for the temple of the Sun in Palmyra, which was sacked 
by the eagle-bearers of the third legion, along with the 
standard-bearers, the dragon-bearer, the hornblowers, and the 
trumpeters, it is my will that it be restored to its original 


1 See above, p. 491. - 2 Vopiscus, Aurelianus, iv. 2. 
3 Vopiscus, Aurelianus, Vv. 5. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 501 


state. You have three hundred pounds of gold from the 
coffers of Zenobia: you have eighteen hundred pounds of 
silver from the plunder of Palmyra: you have the royal 
jewels. Out of all these see that the temple is beautified : 
in doing so you will oblige me and the immortal gods. I 
will write to the Senate requesting them to send a pontiff to 
dedicate the temple.” ’ 

Not content with restoring the temple of the Sun among Temple of 
the ruins of Palmyra, the conqueror built a magnificent sete 
temple of the Sun at Rome and adorned it with the spoil of Aurelian at 
the captured city. In it he set up images of the Sun and ®°™ 
of Bel, of whom no doubt the latter was the Semitic Baal.” 
Among the votive offerings which it contained were masses 
of gold and jewellery and fine robes studded with gems? A 
silver statue and a painted portrait of Aurelian himself were 
afterwards to be seen within the walls.* The splendour of 
the temple was enhanced by colonnades, in which wines 
belonging to the imperial treasury were stored.® - The service 
of the temple was entrusted to a new college of priests called 
Pontiffs of the Sun, or Pontiffs of the Sun-god, or Pontiffs 
of the Unconquered Sun-God,° but of the ritual observed in 
the temple we know nothing. The coins of Aurelian also 
attest his devotion to the solar deity. On one of them the The 
Sun is seen offering to the emperor a globe as a symbol of >""8°4 
the empire of the world, with a captive lying at their feet ; Imperial 
some of the inscriptions on the coins proclaim the Sun-god 
to be the Preserver or Restorer of the World or even Lord 


1 Vopiscus, Aureltanus, xxxi. 5-9. of the Church of St. Sophia. See H. 


2 Zosimus, i. 61; Vopiscus, Aure/ia- 
NUS; XXV. 6, XXXIXx. 2. 

3 Vopiscus, Aurelianus, xxviii. 5, 
XEXIX 10; 

4 Vopiscus, Aurelianus, x. 23 7zd., 
Tacttus, ix, 2. 

5 Vopiscus, Aurelianus, Xxxxv. 3, 
xlviii. 4. The situation of the temple 
is not described by ancient authors, 
but it seems to have been in the Field 
of Mars, on or near the site of the pres- 
ent monastery of S, Silvestro, Eight 
costly columns of red porphyry were 
afterwards removed from the temple 
and conveyed to Constantinople, where 


they were employed in the construction 


Jordan, Zopographie der Stadt Rom im 
Allerthum, i. 3, bearbeitet von Ch. 
Huelsen, pp. 453-456; O. Richter, 
lopographie der Stadt Rom* (Munich, 
1901), pp. 263-265. 

6 Vopiscus, Aurelianus, Xxxv. 3, 
sacerdotia comtposutt, For the inscrip- 
tions see H. Dessau, Jnscriptiones 
Latinae Selectae, Nos, 1203, 1210, 
I211%, 1217, 1243, 1259, 2941, 4149, 
Adis, Of653) Fi) Cumont, Zextes ez 
Monuments figurés relatifs aux Mystéres 
de Mithra, ii, 109-111 ; compare 2zd., 
SUecesOL, intl, Daremberg et i, 
Saglio, Dzctionnatre des Antiguités 
Grecques et Romaines, iv. 2, p. 1384. 


Annual 
sacrifice to 
the Sun on 
November 
18th. 


Spread of 
a solar 
religion in 
the Roman 
Empire. 


502 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Char. 


of the Roman Empire. Such legends seem to announce the 
intention of the emperor to set the Sun-god at the head of 
the pantheon. It is remarkable that on all these coins the 
type of the god, in spite of his Oriental origin, is purely Greek, 
being clearly derived from that of Apollo. On some we see 
a young man wearing a crown with the solar rays and 
carrying in his left hand a globe or a whip; his right hand 
is raised; he is naked except for a light cloak which 
floats on his back. Sometimes he is represented driving 
a four-horse car.' In the reign of Probus the intimate 
rclation of the emperor to the Sun was signified by a 
legend on the coins, “To the Unconquered Sun, the Com- 
panion of Augustus”, and the reorganization of the empire 
by Diocletian did not affect the now traditional types 
and inscriptions on the coins which referred to the solar 
worship... An inscription found at Aquileia records a 
dedication to the Sun-god by the Emperors Diocletian and 
Maximian.’ The armies of Licinius marched to fight the 
armies of Constantine under the protection of the Sun-god, 
and a curious inscription informs us that Licinius established 
in his camp at Salvosia in Moesia an annual sacrifice in 
honour of the Sun on the eighteenth of November, which 
was the first day of the year according to the calendar of 
Antioch.* Constantine himself, during the first quarter of 
his reign, struck many pieces with figures or busts of the 
Sun-god and legends, “The Unconquered Sun”, “To the 
Unconquered Sun, the Companion of Our Augustus”, and so 
forth.’ 

The imperial patronage thus accorded to Sun-worship 
for at least half a century before the establishment of 
Christianity was little more than an official recognition of a 
universal solar religion which had long been spreading in 
the empire under the combined influence of philosophic 


AES Gumont, sas. C ae is Ol arse) Mie sg 
Saglio et E, Daremberg, Decfionnatre 


victus ”’), 
2 F, Cumont, of. ct. pp. 1384 sg. 


des Antiguités Grecgues et Romatnes, 
iv. 2. p. 1384; Fr. Richter, s.v. ‘‘Sol”, 
in W.H.Roscher, Ausfithrliches Lexthon 
der griechischen und romischen Mytho- 
logie, iii. 1148 sg.3; H. Usener, Das 
Wethnachisfest, Kapitel I bis Ill? 
(Bonn, 1911), pp. 358 sg. (‘*Sol In- 


3-H, Dessau, /uscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, No. 624. 

4 F. Cumont, of, c7¢. p. 13853 Fr. 
Richter, of. cz7, ili, 1148. 

5 F, Cumont, of. c7t. p. 1385; H. 
Usener, of. czt. p. 363. 


XH 


WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 


503 


thought, astrological speculation, and Oriental mysteries.’ 
Among these mysteries none were more popular, none Popularity 
proved more dangerous rivals. to Christianity, than the 
worship of the old Persian god Mithra, who was now 
definitely identified with the Sun-god under the title of the 


Unconquered Sun.” 


About the beginning of our era Strabo 


affirms without hesitation or ambiguity that the Persian 


deity Mithra was the Sun.’ 
good modern 
lighte not of the Sun, but 
general, 


Yet in the opinion of some 


scholars Mithra originally personified the 


of the luminous heaven in 


As to the mode, place, and date of the process 


which transformed him from a god of light tn general into 


a god of the Sun in particular we have no information. 


The 


change perhaps took place in Babylonia, where, under the 
powerful influence of Chaldean theology and astrology, the 
Iranian deities were assimilated to their nearest Semitic 
counterparts, the Supreme God Ahura Mazda being identified 
with the Sky-god Bel, while the goddess Anahita was con- 
fused with Ishtar (Astarte), the goddess ot the planet Venus, 
and Mithra was equated with the Sun-god Shamash.* 

But Babylonia was only a stage in the triumphal march Spread of 


of Mithra westward. 


Even under the early kings of the 


of the 
worship of 
Mithra; 
the old 
Persian god 
identified 
with the 
Un- 
conquered 
Sun, 


the worship 
of Mithra 


Achemenidian dynasty Persian colonists seem to have settled from 


/ Pe Cumont;.257a7!f Sol”, ini: E: 
Daremberg et EF. Saglio, Dictionnaire 
des Antiguités Grecagues et Romaines, 
Iv, 25. DP. 1395) 57. ‘ 

2 The standard work on the later 
worship of Mithra is the masterly 
treatise, in two volumes, of TI ranz 
Cumont, Zextes et Monuments figurés 
relatifs aux Mystéres de Mithra 
(Bruxelles, 1896-1899). Elsewhere 
the same scholar has treated the sub- 
ject in a more summary but always 
authoritative manner, See his article 
Po Nilitoee ato Vy. -F1¢° Roscher’s 
Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der griechischen 
und romischen Mythologie, ii, 3026- 
3071; his article ‘‘Mithra”, in E. 
Daremberg et E. Saglio, Déctzonnazre 
des Antiguités Grecques et Romaines, 
lii, 2, pp. 1944-1954; and his ex- 
cellent book Les Religions Orientales 
dans le Paganisme romain? (Paris, 
1909), pp. 200-239. For other treat- 


ments of the topic see G, Wissowa, 
Religion und Kultus der Romer®, pp. 
368-373; S. Reinach, ‘*La Morale du 
Mithraisme”, Cudtes, Alythes et Re- 
figions, il, (Paris, 1906) pp. 220-233 ; 
S. Dill, Roman Soctety from Nero to 
Marcus Aurelius (London, 1920), pp. 
584-626; J. Toutain, Les Cultes paiens 
dans?’ Empire Romain, Premiere Partie, 
li, (Paris, IQII) pp. 121-177. 

3 Strabo, xv. 3. 13. Compare Lac- 
tantius Placidus, on Statius, Zed. i. 
718, ‘“dpud Persas Sol proprio nomine 
Mithra dicitur”’; td. on Statius, Zed. 
i. 720, ‘*‘ Persae in spelaets Solem colunt., 
Et hic Sol proprio nomine vocatur 
Mithra ve 

#-F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments 

Jigurés relatifs aux Mysterves de Mithra, 

i. 230 5g.; za., Les Religions Ortentales 
dans le Paganisme romain*®, pp. 216 
59.) 384 sg. See also above, pp. 30, 
461. 


Babylonia 
westward, 


The 
Persian 
coloniza- 
tion of 
Anatolia, 


The 
Magian 
religion in 
Cappa- 
docia 

and Lydia, 


504 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuap. 


in Armenia, where, according to Strabo, all the Persian 
deities were worshipped.’ It is said that the governor of 
Armenia used to send no less than twenty thousand colts a 
year to the Persian king for use at the Mithrakana or 
festival of Mithra.? Of the mode of celebrating the festival 
at the Persian court we know little or nothing except that 
the only day on which the king was allowed to be drunk 
was the day on which sacrifices were offered to Mithra, and 
on that day he also danced a Persian dance.*? But the 
wave of Persian colonization rolled westward beyond the 
boundaries of Armenia. In its climate, as in its natural 
products, the tableland of Anatolia resembles that of Iran, 
and lent itself particularly to the breeding of horses, and 
hence to the formation of a native cavalry, the arm in which 


the Persians always excelled. Under the sway of Persia 


the nobility who owned the land appear to have belonged to 
the conquering race in Cappadocia,and Pontus as well as in 
Armenia, and despite all the changes of government which 
followed the death of Alexander these noble lords remained. 
the real masters of the country, ruling each the particular 
canton in which his domains were situated and, on the 
borders of Armenia at least, preserving through all political 
vicissitudes down to the time of Justinian the hereditary 
title of satrap which recalled their Iranian origin.* This 
military and feudal aristocracy furnished Mithridates Eupator 
with many of the officers,by whose help he was so long able 
to set the power of Rome at defiance, and still later it 
offered a stout resistance to the efforts of the Roman 
emperors to subjugate Armenia. Now these warlike 
grandees worshipped Mithra as the patron-saint of chivalry ; 
hence it was natural enough that even in the Latin world 
Mithra always passed for the “Invincible”, the guardian of 
armies, the soldier’s god.” In the time of Strabo the 
Magians were still to be found in large numbers, scattered 
over Cappadocia, where they maintained the perpetual fires 


1 Strabo, xi. 14. 16. ing the historians Ctesias and Duris. 

2 Strabo, xi, 14. 16, “As ‘to; -the 4 F,.Cumont, Les Religions Orientales 
Mithrakana see F. Cumont, Zextes dans le Paganisme romain®, p. 213. 
et Monuments figurés relatifs aux 5 F, Cumont, Les Religions Orien- 
Mystéres de Mithra, i, 230. tales dans le Paganisme romain?, 


3 Athenaeus, x. 45, p. 434 E, quot- = pp. 213 sg. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 505 


in their chapels, intoning the liturgy with the regular Persian 
ritual.’ A century and a half later the same sacred fires still 
blazed to the drone of the same liturgy in certain cities of 
Lydia: for Pausanias tells us that “the Lydians have 
sanctuaries of the Persian goddess, as she is called, in the 
cities of Hierocaesarea and Hypaepa, and in each of the 
sanctuaries is a chapel, and in the chapel there are ashes on 
an altar, but the colour of the ashes is not that of ordinary 
ashes. A magician, after entering the chapel and piling dry 
wood on the altar, first claps a tiara on his head, and next 
chants an invocation of some god in a barbarous and, to a 
Greek, utterly unintelligible tongue: he chants the words 
‘from a book. Then without the application of fire the wood 
must needs kindle and a bright blaze shoot up from it.” ” 

Outside of the Anatolian tableland the first to observe The _ 
the rites of Mithra are said to have been the Cilician pirates, Yon? 
During the civil wars which distracted the attention and among the 
absorbed the energies of the Romans in the first century of tee 
our era, these daring rovers seized the opportunity to issue 
from the secret creeks and winding rivers of Cilicia and 
scour the seas, landing from time to time, harrying islands, 
holding cities to ransom, and carrying off from sore of 
the most famous sanctuaries the wealth which had been 
accumulated there by the piety of ages. Gorged with 
plunder and elated by the impunity which they long 
enjoyed, the corsairs rose to an extraordinary pitch of 
audacity and effrontery, marching up the highroads of Italy, 
plundering villas, and abducting Roman magistrates in their 
robes of office; while at sea they displayed a pomp and 


1 Strabo, xv. 3. 15. 

2 Pausanias, v. 27.5 sg. At Hiero- 
caesarea a goddess was worshipped 
whom the Romans called the Persian 
Diana: she was probably Anahita 
(Anaitis) ; and there was also a chapel 
which was said to have been dedicated 
in the reign of Cyrus. See Tacitus, 
Annales, iii, 62, On coins of the city 
Artemis is represented with the legend 
TIEPZIKH. See B. V. Head, Astoria 
Numorum (Oxford, 1887), p. 550. 
The goddess is also mentioned under 
that name in an inscription which may 
have been found at Hierocaesarea, See 


W. Dittenberger, Orzenti’s Graeci In- 


‘seriptiones Selectae, No. 333 (vol. i. 


pp. 519 sg.). Hence, as Dittenberger 
remarks on that inscription, it is highly 
probable that in the passage of Pausanias 
(v. 27. 5), cited above, we should read 
Tlepoixjs with some MSS, for the 
vulgate Ilepocxots. Elsewhere (vil. 6.6) 
Pausanias speaks of a sanctuary of the 
Persian Artemis in Lydia, and it is 
probable that the sanctuary in question 
is the one at Hierocaesarea. This 
makes the preposed correction of the 
text of Pausanias v, 27. 5 practically 
certain, I have adopted it in the text. 


Statius and 
his scholiast 
on the 


worship of 
Mithra, 


506 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Cuapr. 


pageantry proportioned to the riches which they had 
amassed by their successful forays. Their galleys flaunted 
gilded sails and purple awnings, and glided along to ~ 
the measured plash of silvered oars, while the sounds of 
music and revelry, wafted across the water, told to the 
trembling inhabitants of the neighbouring coasts the riot 
and debauchery of the buccaneers.! The worship of Mithra, 
which these sanctified ruffians practised in their fastnesses 
among the wild Cilician mountains, may have been learned 
by them from Mithridates Eupator, King of Pontus, whom 
they assisted in his wars with the Romans.’ 

By the end of the first century of our era the worship of 
Mithra and his identification with the Sun appear to have 
been familiar to the Romans; for in an address to Apollo 
the poet Statius, enumerating the titles by which that deity 
was called, suggests that the god might prefer to be known 
as “Mithra, who under the rocks of the Persian cave twists 
the bull’s struggling horns”.* The allusion is plainly to the 
most widespread and familiar monument of Mithraism, the 
sculpture which represents Mithra in a cave, kneeling on the 
back of a bull and twisting its head back with one hand, 
while with the other he plunges a knife into its flank.* The 
ancient scholiast Lactantius Placidus, commenting on this 
passage of Statius, not only explains Mithra as the Sun 
whom the Persians worshipped in caves, but completes the 
solar interpretation by adding that the horned bull is the 
horned Moon, and that the scene is laid in a cave to signify 
an eclipse of the sun by the interposition of the moon. In 
the group of Mithra and the bull, as the scholiast correctly — 
observes, Mithra is regularly portrayed in Persian costume 
wearing the usual tiara or peaked Phrygian cap; but the 
scholiast proceeds to say that Mithra was also represented 
with the head of a lion, and he explains this representation 
either with reference to the constellation of the Lion which 
the Sun enters in his course through the zodiac, or as a 


1 As to the Cilician pirates see 3 Statius, Zhed. i. 719 sg. 
Strabo, xiv. 5. 2, pp. 668 sg.; Plutarch, 1 Many of these monuments are 
Pompetus, 24; Appian, Bellum Mithri- extant in many parts of Europe. See 
dat, 92 sg.; Dio Cassius, xxxvi. 20-23; F. Cumont, Zextes et Alonuments 


Cicero, De tmperto Cn. Pompeii, 11 sg.  figurés relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra, 
2 Plutarch, Pompey, 24. li, 209 sgq. j 


Xi WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROAIANS 507 


symbol of the superiority of the Sun-god over all the other 
gods, like the superiority of the lion over the other beasts.' 
In this interpretation the scholiast appears to have erred. 
The figure of a lion-headed god, standing with a serpent 
twined round his body and holding one or two keys in 
his hands, is explained with greater probability as a 
personification of Time, answering to the Persian divinity 
Zervan Akarana, Infinite Time, which from the period of 
the Achemenides was deemed by a Magian sect to be the 
origin of all things and the begetter both of Ormuzd and 
Ahriman.” | 

Compared to other Oriental deities, such as the Phrygian Long 
Great Mother, the Carthaginian Astarte, and the Egyptian eget 
Isis and Serapis, the Phrygian god Mithra was a late arrival of Mithra 
in Rome. The nature of the Anatolian plateau explains in eat 
some measure the long seclusion of the deity from the ofanatolia. 
western world. It is a bleak upland region of steppes and 
forests and precipices, which offers few attractions to the 
stranger ; and there, in the solitude of the mountains or the 
dreary expanse of the unending plains, Mithra remained for 
ages isolated amid natural surroundings which formed a not 
unsuitable setting for his stern and soldierly religion. Even 
during the Alexandrian age, after the victorious Greek armies 
had swept over the country, Mithra never descended from 
his highland home to the soft skies and blue-seas of Ionia. 
A single late dedication ‘to the Sun Mithra, found at the 
Piraeus, is the only monument of his worship on the coasts 
of the Aegean. The Greeks never welcomed this god of 
their ancient enemies to their hospitable pantheon.° 

But no sooner was the Anatolian tableland overrun by Rapid 
Roman armies and annexed to the Roman empire than (Muster of 


the worship 


the worship of Mithra spread like wildfire to the remotest of Mithra 
by Roman 


regions of the west and south. The soldiers adopted it with ogi... 
enthusiasm, and from about the end of the first century of merchants, 


and slaves. 


our era they carried it with them to their distant camps on 
the Danube and the Rhine, on the coast of France, among 


1 Lactantius Placidus on Statius, that the lion-headed god in Oriental 
Theb. i, 720. art is the last heir of a lion-totem, 
3 F, Cumont, Zexles e¢ Alonuments, 
2 F. Cumont, 7extes e¢ Monuments, i.241-243, ii.469, Inscription No, 2204, 
i. 74-85. This scholar suggests (p.79) 7@'HAtw 7@ Mirpac. 


The 
worship of 
Mithra 
favoured by 
Commodus 
and later 
Roman 
Emperors, 


508 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Car. 


the mountains of Wales and Scotland, in the valleys of the 
Asturias, and even on the edge of the Sahara, where a line 
of military posts guarded the southern frontier of the empire. 
In all these widely separated quarters of the globe they 
left memorials of their devotion to Mithra in the shape of 
monuments dedicated to his worship. At the same time 
merchants of Asia introduced the religion into the ports of 
the Mediterranean and carried it far into the interior by water- 
ways or roadways to all the important trading cities and 
martsof commerce. In our own country Mithraic monuments 
have been found in London, York, and Chester. Finally, 
among the apostles of the new faith must be reckoned the 
Oriental slaves, who were everywhere and had a hand in 
everything, being employed in the public services as well as 
in private families, whether they toiled as labourers in the 
fields and the mines, or as clerks and book-keepers in 
counting-houses and government offices, where their number 
was legion.’ 

At last the foreign deity wormed his way into the favour 
of the high officials and even of the emperor. Towards the 
close of the second century of our era an immense impulse 
was given to the propagation of the religion by the attention 
bestowed on it by the Emperor Commodus, who, in keeping 
with his brutal and cruel character, is said to have polluted 
the rites by human sacrifice? The dedications, “to The 
Unconquered Sun Mithra for the safety of Commodus 
Antoninus Augustus, our Lord”,? and numerous other 


1 F,Cumont, Les Religions Ortentales 
dans le Paganisme romain®, pp. 220 sq. 


a careful analysis of the geographical 
diffusion and character of the monu- 


For details as to the diffusion of the 
religion and the monuments, see 7d, 
Textes et Monuments, i, 241 sgq.3 ta., 
s.v. **Mithras”’, in W. H. Roscher’s 
Ausfiihrliches Lextkon der griechischen 
und romischen Mythologie, ii, 3030- 
4037 sre t0 caso mer Vie, ool tos 
Daremberg et E. Saglio, Dictionnaire 
des Antiqguités Grecques et Romatnes, 
iii, 2. pp. 1945-1947; and especially 
J. Toutain, Les Cultes paiens dans 
LEmpire Romain, Premiere Partie, ii, 
144-159. For the Mithraic monuments 
in Britain, see F, Cumont, Zextes et 
Monuments, ii, pp. 389-396. From 


ments, Monsieur J. Toutain concludes 
that Mithraism was mainly a religion 
of the soldiers, that it was never popular 
with the bulk of the middle classes, 
and that its adherents were never so 
numerous as to constitute a serious 
rivalry with Christianity, 


2 Lampridius, Commodus, 9 (Scrip-- 
tores Historiae Augustae, vol. i. p. 105, 
ed. H. Peter}, 


3 -F, Cumont, Zexées e¢ A/onuments, 
ii, pp. 99, 170, Inscriptions 34 and 
541. The two inscriptions vary slightly 
in the wording, 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 509 


Mithraic dedications dating from the reign of Commodus, attest 
the popularity which the worship attained in the sunshine of 
imperial favour.’ From the early years of the third century 
the religion was served by a domestic chaplain in the palace 
of the Caesars, and inscriptions record the vows and offerings 
of its devotees for the prosperity of the Emperors Septimius 
and Alexander Severus and afterwards of Philip. Still later 
the Emperor Aurelian, who, as we have seen, established an 
official cult of the Sun at Rome, could not but sympathize 
with Mithra, the god who was himself now regularly identified 
with the Sun. By the beginning of the fourth century the 
Mithraic faith had spread so widely and struck its roots so 
deep, that for a moment it seemed as if it would overshadow 
all its rivals and dominate the Roman world from end to end. 
In the year 307 A.D. Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius had 
a solemn meeting at Carnuntum on the Danube, and there 
consecrated together a sanctuary “to the Unconquered Sun- 
god Mithra, the favourer of their empire”.? So near did 
Mithra come to being the Supreme God of the Roman 
empire. Yet a few years later and that same empire bowed 
its neck to the yoke of another Oriental god, and the Sun, 
the Unconquered Sun, of Mithra set for ever. 

The popular identification of Mithra with the Sun in the Popular 
later times 6f classical antiquity is placed beyond the reach 4cptes 
of doubt by a multitude of inscriptions, found in all parts of Mithrawith 
the Roman empire, which directly qualify Mithra as the popes 
Sun or more usually as Mithra the Unconquered Sun.’ 


1! F, Cumont, Zex/es et Monuments, 
i. 281, with the references-to the in- 
scriptions in vol, ii. pp. 540 sg. 

2 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
i, 281, ii. 146, Inscription 367; 7d., 
Les Religions Orientales dans le Paga- 
nisme romain, pp, 221 sq. 

3 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
vol, ii. Inscriptions Nos, 2, 28, 29, 
30, 34, 49, 50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 61, 
62, 66, 67, 72, 74, 75, 131, 135, 141, 
144, 149, I5I, 156, 157, 159, 161, 
163, 172, 235, 258, 287, 295, 320, 
354, 355, 360, 423, 430, 461, 479, 
509, 526, 541, 542 (Mithra the Un- 
conquered Sun), Nos. 76, 134, 150, 
193, 485 (Mithra the Sun, or Mithra 
the Sun-god). All these inscriptions 


are in Latin, except Nos. 75, 149, and 
150, which are in Greek, In this list 
I have omitted many inscriptions in 
which the title ‘* Mithra the Uncon- 
quered Sun” is indicated only by 
abbreviations, such as D(eo) 5(o/2) 
I(nvicto) At(zthrae) in the inscription of 
Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius (No. 
367). For inscriptions which describe 
Mithra as the Unconquered Sun (So/ 
Invictus Mithras) or the Unconquered 
Sun-god Mithra (deus Sol tnvectus 
Mithras), see H. Dessau, Jrscriptiones 
Latinae Selectae, Nos. 659 (=Cumont, 
No. 367), 1661, 4152, 4191, 4194, 
4198, 4200, 4202, 4203, 4204, 4205, 
4213, 4215, 4223, 4226, 4227, 4229, 
4237, 4238. 


Mithra and 
the Sun 
represented 
by separate 
figures on 
the monu- 
ments, 


510 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES citar. 


Nevertheless on many monuments of the worship Mithra and 
the Sun are represented by separate figures as if they were 
distinct deities. In one scene we see Mithra standing in his 
usual Oriental costume opposite a young man, naked or clad 
in a simple cloak, who is either standing or kneeling at the 
feet of Mithra. In some reliefs Mithra is putting on his 
companion’s head or removing from it a large curved object 
which sometimes resembles a horn or a deflated leathern 
bottle. The kneeling personage is usually passive, but 
sometimes he lifts his arms, whether in supplication or to put 
aside or retain the mysterious object which is being placed 
on his head or removed from it. In some reliefs the scene 
is more complicated: Mithra is displacing the enigmatical 
object with his right hand, while with his left he places on 
his companion’s head a radiant crown. In one scene of a 
great relief found at Osterburken we see Mithra holding the 
same object over the head of the kneeling figure with his 
right hand, while he puts his left hand to the hilt of his 
sword at his belt, and the radiant crown lies on the ground 
between them. The exact significance of the scene is 
uncertain, but the standing or kneeling figure who receives 
or loses the radiant crown is interpreted as the Sun, towards 
whom Mithra seems to adopt an attitude of superiority by 
conferring upon him or removing from him the crown of rays 
which is the emblem of his solar character. Perhaps the 
scene refers to a contest between the two deities in which’ 
Mithra remained the victor. It has also been suggested that 
Mithra is pouring oil or other liquid from a horn on the head 
of the Sun as a solemn form of baptism or investiture in sign 
of the powers which that deity will wield when he is crowned 
with the diadem of rays.’ In another scene of a great relief 
found at Heddernheim we see Mithra holding out his hand 
to the kneeling Sun as if helping him to rise: the head of 
the Sun is surrounded by a nimbus.? On several monuments 
the two gods are represented standing opposite each other 


1 ¥, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments,  tschen und roimischen Mythologie, ii. 


1, 172 sg. For the relief at Oster- 
burken, see 7@., vol. il. pp. 348-351, 
with Plate VI, Compare F, Cumont, 
sv. **Mithras ”, in W. II. Roscher’s 
Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der griech- 


3047. 

2 ¥. Cumont, Zextes ef Alonuments, 
1,173. For the relief at Lleddernheim, 
see zd., vol, li. pp. 362 sgg., with 
Plate VII. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 511 


and shaking hands. Mithra wears his usual costume: the 
Sun is either naked with a nimbus round his head, or he 
wears a cloak and the radiant crown and carries a whip. 
The meaning of the scene is obvious. The two deities have 
concluded a treaty of alliance, and peace and harmony will 
henceforth reign between them. In the relief at Osterburken, 
as if to give a religious consecration to the union of the two 
gods, they are represented shaking hands over an_ altar.’ 
Further, the peace between Mithra and the Sun is sealed by The scene 
a banquet, at which they are portrayed reclining side by side tien 
at the festive board and holding up goblets in their right 
hands, while about the table are gathered a number of guests 
as partakers of the sacred feast. The importance attached 
to this divine banquet is attested both by the number of 
the monuments on which it is figured and by the important 
place assigned to it in the series of subsidiary scenes arranged 
round the central piece, the sacrifice of the bull by Mithra.” 
Often, especially in the great sculptured reliefs which have 
been found in the valley of the Rhine, the relief representing 
the banquet is the last of the whole series, as if it formed the 
concluding act in the history of the god’s exploits, the Last 
Supper of which he partook before quitting the scene of his 
earthly labours.’ 

Remembering that according to the Christian Fathers a The 
sort of communion was celebrated in the Mithraic mysteries’, Bvteas 
we can understand why the devotces of the religion set so commemo. 
high a value on this last feast of Mithra and his companions, "°” 
or should we say his disciples? The sacramental act which 
the liturgy appears to have prescribed was accomplished in 
memory of the example set by the Divine Master. This 
relation between the legend and the ritual is established by 
a fragmentary relief discovered in Bosnia. It represents 
two devotees reclining at a table on which loaves are set 
out: one of them holds a drinking horn: both are in the 
attitude in which Mithra and the Sun are regularly 
represented on the other monuments. Round about the two 
devotees, or rather communicants, are grouped the initiated 


1 F, Cumont, Zexles ef Monuments, 3 F, Cumont, Zexles e¢ Monuments, 


i773; iS 740 S17 ¢ 
2 F, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, 
bet beget 4 See below, pp. 524, 525. 


The mystic 
hierarchy, 


Sacred 
masquer- 
ades. 


The 
ascension 
of Mithra 
toheavenin 
the chariot 
of the Sun. 


512 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuavp. 


of various grades in the mystic hierarchy, including the 
Raven, the Persian, the Soldier, and the Lion, wearing the 
masks which are appropriate to their names and which they 
are known from other sources to have worn in the sacred 
rites.. A text of St. Jerome, confirmed by a series of 
inscriptions, informs us that there were seven degrees of 
initiation in the Mithraic mysteries, and that the initiated 
took successively the names of the Raven, the Occult, the 
Soldier, the Lion, the Persian, the Courier of the Sun 
(heliodromus}, and the Father. These strange names were 
not simply honorary titles. On certain occasions the 
officiants disguised themselves in costumes appropriate to 
the names which they bore. These sacred masquerades were 
variously interpreted by the ancients with reference either to 
the signs of the zodiac or to the theory of transmigration. 
Such differences of opinion only prove that the original mean- 
ing of the disguises was forgotten. Probably the masquerade 
was a survival from a time when the gods were supposed to 
wear or assume the form of animals, and when the worshipper 
attempted to identify himself with his deity by dressing 
in the skin and other trappings of the divine creature. 
Similar survivals in ritual are common in many religions.” 
To complete the history of Mithra we must notice the 
monuments on which the Sun is represented driving in his 
chariot, which is drawn by four horses at full gallop. With 
the left hand he grasps the reins, while he holds out his right 
hand to Mithra, who approaches to take his place beside 
the Sun in the chariot: sometimes, indeed, Mithra clings to 
the arm of the Sun-god as if preparing to leap into the 
whirling car. Sometimes the Ocean, into which the Sun’s 
chariot descends at night, is indicated by the figure of a 
bearded man reclining on the ground and leaning on an urn 
or holding a:reed.2 Yet the daily disappearance of the Sun 


1 F, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, 
i, 176. 

2 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
i, 314-317. For the passage of St. 
Jerome (LZ fistle, cvii. ad Saetam, 
Migne, fatrologia Latina, xxii. p. 
869), quoted by Cumont, see zd, ii. 18. 
As to the degrees of initiation in the 
Mithraic mysteries see also Porphyry, 


De abstinentia, iv. 16, who mentions 
the titles of Eagles and Hawks in 
addition to those of Ravens and Lions. 
Porphyry notices the zodiacal ex- 
planation of the titles, but prefers the 
theory of the transmigration of human 
souls into animal bodies. 

3 F, Cumont, 'Zextes e¢ Monuments, 
Tt yO s¢. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS | 513 


setting in the sea does not suffice to explain this scene 
nor the part which Mithra plays in it. To understand it 
we must compare the scenes carved on some Christian 
sarcophaguses, which present so striking a resemblance to 
the Mithraic sculptures that the two series can hardly be 
independent of each other. On the Christian sarcophaguses 
it is the prophet Elijah who stands erect in his car drawn by 
four galloping steeds. He grasps the reins with his left 
hand, while with his right he holds out his mantle to the 
prophet Elisha, who stands on the ground behind the car. 
In front of the car, and beneath the rearing steeds, the 
figure of a bearded man is stretched, leaning with his left 
arm on an urn from which water is flowing. The reclining 
figure represents the Jordan, from whose banks the prophet 
Elijah was swept away to heaven on the chariot and horses 
of fire. In the light of this parallel we may suppose that 
Mithra, like the prophet of Israel, his earthly labours over, 
was believed to have ascended up to heaven in the Sun’s 
bright chariot, though doubtless he was thought still to look 
down upon and protect the faithful worshippers whom he 
left behind him on earth. Sze ztur ad astra. 

It remains to mention among the Mithraic sculptures The figures 
two figures which are commonly supposed to be connected et cin 
with the solar character of Mithra. The great scene of the bearers, 
sacrifice of the bull, which occupied the central place in ante ae 
Mithraic art and probably in Mithraic religion, is regularly pates, 
flanked by two youthful male figures dressed like Mithra aa: 
and wearing the usual peaked Phrygian cap. Each of them monv- 
grasps a burning torch, but one of them holds the burning “~” 
end of the torch up, while the other turns it down towards 
the earth. Though they are most commonly represented in 
the scene of the sacrifice, where they are in a sense the 
acolytes or satellites of Mithra, yet they also occur in large 
numbers as detached sculptures. For example, they are 
found in couples as votive offerings in the usual subterranean 
sanctuaries. In the scene of the sacrifice they are por- 
trayed as smaller than Mithra, but not disproportionately so, 
and they are always dressed exactly like him. For the 
most part they take no part in the sacrifice, but stand 

1 F, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, i, 178, 306. 
VOL. I 2L 


The triple 
Mithra, 
or the 
Mithraic 
Trinity. 


514 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Ciuapr, 


motionless as statues, gazing into space’ or absorbed in the 
contemplation of the flame of their torch. Sometimes, 
however, the torch-bearer who stands behind the bull grips 
the animal’s tail below the bunch of ears of corn in which 
the tail terminates: the gesture seems to indicate that he 
is about to detach the bunch of ears from the tail.' Two 
pairs of statues of these torch-bearers are accompanied by 
inscriptions, from which we learn that the one who held 
up his torch was called Cautes, and that the one who held 
down his torch was called Cautopates. Elsewhere the same 
names have been found on inscribed pairs of pedestals, 
though the statues which stood on the pedestals are lost. 
The addition of the words deus (“god”) to the names in some 
of the inscriptions proves that both Cautes and Cautopates 
were regarded as divine.” 

The meaning and etymology of these two barbarous 
names are uncertain, attempts to derive them from the 
Persian appear to have hitherto failed ;*° but from some of 
the inscriptions in which they occur it seems indubitable 
that both names are merely epithets of Mithra himself. 
One of these inscriptions reads, a(eo) z(nvecto) M(tthrae) 
Cautopatz, that is, “To the Unconquered god Mithra 
Cautopates”, and a certain number of dedications ought to 
be read similarly.* Another inscription runs, deo M(cthrae) 
C(autopatz) S(olt) invicto), that is, “To the god Mithra 
Cautopates, the Unconquered Sun”.° Hence it would seem 
that in the great scene of the sacrifice of the bull, which 
occurs so often in Mithraic art, Mithra is represented thrice 
over. Now we are told by the Pseudo-Dionysius the 
Areopagite that the Magians celebrated a festival of the 
Triple Mithra; and this statement, which has been much 
discussed, is illustrated by the monuments in question, which 
represent Mithra in three distinct forms, namely, the central 
figure of Mithra slaying the bull, flanked by the two torch- 


1 F, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, 4259, 9280. 


1, 203-205. 3 F, Cumont, Zextes et Afonuments, 
2 ¥F, Cumont, Zextes et AJonuments, i. 208. 
1. . 207,41. Da, b22y 7) nscrploniaros, 4 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 


p. 142, Inscriptions 329, 330; H._ i. 208, ii. 533; H. Dessau, Inscriptiones 
Dessau, /scriptiones Latinae Selectae,  Latinae Selectae, No. 4256. 

Nos. 4250, 4252, 4252>, 42538, ® H. Dessau, Juscriptiones Latinae 
4253, 4254, 4255, 4256, 4258,  Selectae, No. 4257. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 515 


bearers Cautes and Cautopates. Hence apparently we are 
driven to conclude that the sculptor meant to portray a 
triune god or a single deity at three different moments of his 
existence.’ 

This Mithraic trinity has nothing to correspond to it in Cautes and 
the religion of Zoroaster, but it may well be of Babylonian reer 
origin. Now according to Semitic astrology Mithra is a astherising 
solar god; hence the two torch-bearers must also be the areata 
Sun, but they must represent him under different aspects or 
at different moments of his course. Perhaps the two youths 
stand for the brightening or the fading glow of the morning 
or evening twilight, while the god stabbing the bull between 
them may represent the splendour of noon. Long ago the 
learned French antiquary Montfaucon interpreted the three 
figures of these reliefs as the rising sun, the mid-day sun, 
and the setting sun. This would explain why in many 
reliefs the figure of Cautes, who holds up his torch, is 
accompanied by a cock, the herald of the dawn. = So in 
Greek mythology the cock was regarded as the herald of the 
Sun and was accounted sacred to him; and Plutarch speaks 
of an image of Apollo holding a cock in his hand, which 
he naturally interprets as a symbol of the dawn and 
sunrise. Similarly in two Mithraic monuments the torch- 
bearer who holds up his torch in one hand supports a cock 
on the other. Hence we infer that this youth, named Cautes, 
was regarded as an cmblem of the rising sun, and we may 
suppose that in the daily liturgy Cautes was invoked at 
sunrise, the bull-slaying god at noon, and Cautopates at 
sunset.” . ' 

A more recondite theory would explain the two torch- Cautes and 
bearers as syinbols of the vernal and the autumnal sun pene 
respectively, the one waxing and the other waning in as the 

a8 tie : °,.-«)) vernal 
power and splendour. In favour of this interpretation it is 


and the 


pointed out that Cautes and Cautopates are sometimes agin 
oun, 


1 F, Cumont, Zerles e¢ Monuments, i, 209 sg. As for the sanctity of the 
i, 208 sg. The passage of the Pseudo- cock and its dedication to the Sun in 
Dionysius (Z/7s¢. vii., Migne, Zatrologia Greek mythology, see Pausanias, v. 25. 
Graeca, Vol, ill, p. 1082) is quoted by 9; Jamblichus, De Lythagorica vita, 
FF. Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, vol. — xxviii. 147. For the image of Apollo 
li, p. 11, eloére Mayor Ta pynudsuva with the cock on his hand see Plutarch, 
Tov Tpirdaclov Ml@pov rédovow. De Pythtae oraculis, 12, 

2 F, Cumont, Zextes et Afonuments, 


Signifi- 
canceof the 
two torch- 
bearers. 


The great 
scene of the 
Sacrifice of 
the Bull 
on the 
Mithraic 
monu- 
ments. 


516 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES CuHaAp. 


represented holding in their hands, the one the head of a 
bull, and the other a scorpion ; or a bull is seen browsing or 
resting beside Cautes, while a scorpion crawls at the feet of 
Cautopates. Now at avery remote date the Bull and the 
Scorpion were the signs of the zodiac which the sun 
occupied at the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes respect- 
ively, although in classical times, as a consequence of the 
precession of the equinoxes, the sun had long retrograded to 
the signs of the Ram and the Balance. It is tempting to 
conjecture that the traditional emblems of the constella- 
tions which once marked the beginning of spring and the 
beginning of autumn were transmitted from Chaldea to the 
west and preserved in the symbolism of the mysteries long 
after they had ceased to correspond with the facts of . 
astronomy.’ 

Be that as it may, we may be fairly certain as to the 
general significance of the two torch-bearers in Mithraic 
art. The one who lifts his torch is a personification either 
of the matutinal or of the vernal sun which mounts higher 
and higher in the sky and by its growing Hight and strength 
imparts fertility to the earth. The other who depresses 
his torch personifies the declining sun, whether the great 
luminary appears to haste at evening to his setting, or to 
sink day by day lower and lower in the autumnal and 
wintry sky.” 

Far more obscure and difficult to interpret is the scene 
of the sacrifice of the bull, which, as we have seen, occupies 
the central place in Mithraic art, as the sacrifice itself — 
doubtless formed the supreme act in the Mithraic religion. 
In the crypts, which constituted the Mithraic temples, a 
sculptured group representing Mithra in the act of slaying 
the bull was regularly placed at the far end, facing the 
entrance, in a position corresponding to that which is 
occupied by the altar in Christian churches. Not only so, 
but reduced copies of the group were placed, like cruci- 
fixes with Christians, in domestic oratories and no doubt 
in the private apartments of the faithful. The number 
of reproductions of it which have come down to us is 


1 F, Cumont, Zextes ef Monuments, 2 F. Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, 
i, 210, 1, 211, 


X11 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 517 


enormous,’ comparable to the number of crucifixes which 
would be found in the ruins of Europe by the hordes of 
infidel and iconoclastic invaders which may one day lay the 
whole fabric of western civilization in the dust. 

A possible clue to the meaning of the mysterious The ears of 
sacrifice is furnished by certain curious details of the sculp- (0. © 
tures which represent it. On almost all the monuments dying bull. 
the tail of the dying bull ends in a bunch of ears of corn, 
and on the most ancient of the Italian monuments three ears 
of corn are distinctly represented issuing instead of blood 
from the wound in the bull’s side.” The inference seems 
inevitable that the bull was supposed to contain in itself 
certain powers of vegetable fertility, which were liberated by 
its death. 

Now according to the ancient Avestan system of In Avestan 
cosmogony the primeval ox, created by the Supreme God courte 
Ahura Mazda, contained in itself the seeds of all plants slaughter 
and of all animals except man; it was slain by the evil ae 
demon Ahriman, but in its death it gave birth to the whole byAhriman 
vegetable and animal creation, always with the exception Of eee 
the human species, which was supposed to have had _ a life, both 
different origin. Thus in the Bundahish, an ancient Pahlavi cen 
work on cosmology, mythology, and legendary history, we 
read: “On the nature of the five classes of animals it says 
in revelation, that, when the primeval ox passed away, there 
where the marrow came out grain grew up of fifty and five 
species, and twelve species of medicinal plants grew; as it 
says that out of the marrow is every separate creature, every 
single thing whose lodgment is in the marrow. From the 
horns arose peas, from the nose the leek, from the blood the 
grape-vine from which they make wine—on this account 
wine abounds with blood—from the lungs the rue-like herbs, 
from the middle of the heart thyme for keeping away stench, 
and every one of the others as revealed in the Avesta. The 
seed of the ox was carried up to the moon station ; there it 
was thoroughly purified, and produced the manifold species 

of animals. First, two oxen, one male and one female, and, 


1 F, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, remarkable monument showing the ears 
ir 63, 179. of corn instead of blood is now in the 

2 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, British Museum, It was formerly in 
i, 186 5g., ii, 228, with fig. 10, The Rome. 


The 
sacrifice of 
the bull 
on the 
Mithraic 
monu- 
ments 
may repre- 
sent the 
slaughter 
of the 
primeval 
Ox. 


518 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuapr. 


afterwards, one pair of every single species was let go into 
the earth.”' Again, in another passage of the same treatise 
we read: “As it (the primeval ox) passed away, owing to 
the vegetable principle proceeding from every limb of the ox, 
fifty and five species of grain and twelve species of medicinal 
plants grew forth from the earth, and their splendour and 
strength were the seminal energy of the ox. | Delivered to the 
moon station, that seed was thoroughly purified by the light of 
the moon, fully prepared in every way, and produced life in 
a-body. Thence arose two oxen, one male and one female ; 
and, afterwards, two hundred and eighty-two species of each 
kind became manifest upon the earth.” * 

Hence it scems highly probable that the Mithraic sculp-_ 
ture of the sacrifice of the bull represents the slaughter of 
the primeval ox, which in dying produced from the various 
parts of its body the whole vegetable and animal creation, 
always with the exception of humankind. We can now 
understand why, in the Mithraic group of the slaughter of 
the bull, the animal is always represented fallen with its head 
to the right, never to the left. The reason is given in the 
Bundahish, which tells us that “when the primeval ox passed 
away it fell to the right hand”.4* Thus we may fairly con- 
clude that in the belief of the Mithraic devotees the slaughter 
of the primeval ox- was a creative act to which plants and 
animals alike owed their origin. We can therefore under- 
stand why the priests should have transferred that beneficent, 
though painful, act from Ahriman, the evil spirit, to Mithra, 
the good and beneficent god. In this way Mithra apparently 
came to be deemed the creator and source of life, as indeed 
he is described in a passage of Porphyry.® Thus the sad 


1 Bundahish, xiv, 1-3, in E, W. 
West’s Pahlavi Texts, Part I. (Oxford, 


3 This is the view of F. Cumont, 
Textes et Monuments, i, 186 $g., whose 


1880) pp. 45 sg. (Sacred Books of the 
Fast, vol.v.). Compare J. Darmesteter, 
Ormazd et Ahriman, pp. 144 599.3 
A.V. Williams Jackson, ‘‘ Die iranische 
Religion”, in W. Geiger und E. Kuhn, 
Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, 
ii, 669, 673 sg.; F. Cumont, Zextes et 
Monuments, i, 186 sq. 

2 Bundahish, x, 1-3; compare xxvii, 
2, in E, W. West’s Pahlavi Texts, 
Part I. pp. 31 sg., 99 sg. 


explanation of the sacrifice I have 
adopted, 

4 Bundahish, iv. 1, in E. W. West’s 
Pahlavi Texts, Part I. p. 20. 

5 Porphyry, De antro nympharum, 
24, émwoxetrar dé [scil. Ml@pas] ravpw — 
"Adpodirns, ws cal 6 radpos Snusoupyds 
dv 6 Mi@pas kal yevéoews Seomdrns. In 
this passage the words 6 Mi@pas are 
perhaps an interpolation, as F, Cumont 
has seen ( Zextes e¢ Monuments, vol. ii. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 519 


and solemn scene which always met the eyes of Mithraic 
worshippers in the apse at the far end.of their temples com- 
memorated the consummation of the great sacrifice which in 
ages gone by had given life and fertility to the world. 

But perhaps the sight of the tragic group in the religious Mazdean 
gloom of the vaulted temple awakened in the minds of the (ones! 
worshippers other thoughts which moved them still more resurrection 
deeply.” For it is probable, we are told, that in the Mithraic a acs 
religion the cosmogonic myths were correlated with the ideas accom- 
entertained by the Magians as to the end of the world. In Sencar, 


fact, the two sets of beliefs present a resemblance which is een 
naturally explained by the identity of their origin, if we ofthe | 
suppose that both narratives are variants of a single primitive ia 
theme. We know, both from Greek writers and the Mazdean a magic 
scriptures,.that the ancient Persians believed in a resurrection P°!™ 

of the dead at the end of this present world. Thus the Greek 
historian Theopompus recorded that according to the Magians 

men would come to life again and be immortal.? According 

to Aeneas of Gaza, in his treatise on the immortality of the 

soul, “Zoroaster predicts that a time will come in which 

there will be a resurrection of all the dead”.* The state- 
ments of these Greek writers are amply confirmed by the 
sacred books of the ancient Persian religion, which explicitly 
teach the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, good and 
bad alike, at the end of the present dispensation. They 
predict that in these last days there will arise a Redeemer 


or Saviour named Soshyans or Saoshyant, who will be the 


9,.p. 3; ed: Cobet, 
the same _ statement 


p- 41). If that is so, all that Porphyry Diogenes adds that 


was 


expressly affirms is that ‘‘the bull is 
also a creator and master of genera- 
tion”, with the implication that 
Mithra is a creator and master of life 
as well as the bull. But in that case 
the sentence is ungrammatical, for in- 
stead of the nominatives (0 Tavpos, x.7.X.) 
we ought to have genitives (rod ravpou, 
KTA. ). 

1 F, Cumont, 7extes e¢ Monuments, 
Toate 

2 Here I again follow the suggestions 
of F, Cumont (Zextes e¢ AJonuments, i. 
187 5qg.). 

3 Theopompus, cited by Diogenes 
Laertius, V7t, phzlosoph., Prooemium, 


made by 
Eudemus the Rhodian. 

4 Aeneas of Gaza, Dial. de tmmort. 
animae, ed, Boissonade, 1836, p. 77, 
‘O 6¢ Zwpodorpns mpodéyet ws éorat more 
xXpovos év @ mdvTwy vexpOv dvdoraats 
€rrat* oldev 6 Odoroumos (quoted by F. 
Cumont, 7extes et Monuments, i. 187, 
note’), However, Herodotus (iii. 62) 
reports the saying of a Persian noble- 
man whichimplies a complete scepticism 
as to the resurrection of the dead. But 
even if the saying is authentic, it does 
not follow that the scepticism was 
universal among the Persians, though 
the speaker appears to assume that it 
was shared by Cambyses. 


- in life. 


The Last 
Judgment. 


520 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuap. 


agent of the resurrection.. He it is, we are told, “who 
makes the evil spirit impotent, and causes the resurrection 
and future existence”.? In the task of bringing the dead to 
life the Redeemer will be assisted by fifteen men and fifteen 
damsels, and their labours will last for seven and fifty years. 
Now the way in which they will bring about the resurrection is 
this. They will slay an ox called Hadhayos, and from the fat 
of that ox and the sacred white osm or haoma (the equivalent 
of the Sanscrit soma) they will prepare an ambrosia (Aé#sh), and 
they will give it to all men, and all men will drink of it and 
become immortal for ever and ever. Then will all men stand 
up, the righteous and the wicked alike. Every human creature 
will arise, each on the spot where he died. The souls of the 
dead will resume their former bodies and they will gather in 
one place, and they will know those whom they knew formerly 
They will say, “This is my father, and this is 
mother, and this is my brother, and this is my wife, and 
these are some other of my nearest relations”. They will 
come together with the greatest affection, father and son and 
brother and friend, and they will ask one another, saying, 
“Where hast thou been these many years? and what was 
the judgment upon thy soul? hast thou been righteous or 
wicked ?” And all will join with one voice and praise aloud 
the Lord God Almighty (Ahura Mazda) and the archangels. 
There in that assembly, which no man can number, all men 
will stand together, and every man will see his own good 
deeds and his own evil deeds, and in that assembly a wicked 
man will be as plain to see as a white sheep among black. 
In that day the wicked man who was a friend of a righteous 
man will make his moan, saying, ‘“ Why, when he was in the 
world, did he not make me acquainted with the good deeds 
which he practised himself?” Afterwards they will separate’ 
the righteous from the wicked, and the righteous will be 
carried up to heaven, but the wicked will be cast down into 


1 F, Cumont, Zexées et Monuments, 
i, 187) sg On, the adectnne. of the 
Redeemer and the resurrection from 
the dead in.the Mazdean religion, see 


Fr. Spiegel, Zyrédnische Alterthums- 
kunde, li. 158 sgg.; A. V. Williams 
Jackson, ‘* Die iranische Religion”, in 


W. Geiger und E. Kuhn, Gresdriss der 


tranischen Philologie, ii.669 sg.,685 s¢. 
The principal passage on the subject 
in the sacred books is Bumdahish, xxx. 


(E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts, Part I, 
pp. 120-130). 
2 Bundahish, xi, 6 (E. W. West, 


Pahlavi Texis, Part I. p. 33). 


xu WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 521 


hell. For at the bidding of the Lord God Almighty (Ahura 
Mazda), the Redeemer and his assistants will give to every 
man the reward and recompense of his deeds.! 

Hence it would seem that Mithra succeeded to the place Mithra 
which in the old Persian religion had been occupied by Soshyans 3S '"* 


Saviour, 
or Saoshyant, the Redeemer or Saviour. Thus in the belief and the 


of his worshippers “the sacrifice of the divine bull was in Tea Pf 
truth the great event in the history of the world, the event 4s the 

: ‘ eluate supreme 
which stands alike at the beginning of the ages and at the event in the 
consummation of fime, the event which is the source at once eat 
of the earthly life and of the life eternal. We can there- 
fore understand why among all the sacred imagery of 
the mysteries the place of honour was reserved for the 
representation of this supreme sacrifice, and why always and 
everywhere it was exposed in the apse of the temples to the 
adoration of the worshippers.”? On the minds of worshippers, 
seated in the religious gloom of the subterranean temple, 
the mournful scene of the slaughter of the bull, dimly 
discerned at the far end of the sanctuary, was doubtless 
well fitted to impress solemn thoughts, not only of the 
great sacrifice which in days long gone by had been the 
source of life on earth, but also of that other great sacrifice, 
still to come, on which depended all their hopes of a blissful 
immortality. 

A rite which presents a superficial resemblance to the The sauro- 
sacrifice of the bull in the Mithraic religion was the ceremony ree 
known as a Zaurobolium. This strange sacrament consisted bull’sblood 
essentially in a baptism or bath of bull’s blood, which was sah tie 
believed to wash away-sin, and from which the devotee was awayofsins 
supposed to emerge born again to eternal. life. Crowned ee ae 
with gold and wreathed with fillets, the candidate for the new teal life. 
birth descended into a pit, the mouth of which was covered 
with a wooden grating. A bull, adorned with garlands of 
flowers, its forehead plastered with gold leaf, was then driven 
on to the grating and there slaughtered with a sacred spear. 

Its hot reeking blood poured through the grating on the 
worshipper in the pit, who received it with devout eagerness 


1 Bundahish, xxx, 1-27 (E. W.  F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
Wiest meen magteey 2xisse.bPart I; pp. 1.18757. 
120-127), Compare Fr, Spiegel, 2 F, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, 
Eridnische Alterthumskunde, ii, 160sg.; 1. 188. 


The rite 
was no part 
of the 
regular 
Mithraic 
worship, 
but 

was often 
observed 
by Mithraic 
devotees. 


522 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Cisne 


on every part of his person and garments, till at last he 
emerged gory from head to foot, and received the homage, 
nay, the adoration, of his fellows as one who had been born 
again to eternal life and had washed away his: sins in the 
blood of the bull.’ It does not appear that this baptism of 
blood ever formed part of the regular Mithraic ritual. The 
many inscriptions which mention it, with the exception of 
one which appears to be forged, explicitly refer the rite to the 
worship of the Great Mother and Attis.2 Yet worshippers 
of Mithra are known to have sometimes submitted to the 
repulsive rite ; for we possess the dedication of an altar to 
the Mother of the Gods and Attis by a certain Sextilius 
Agesilaus Aedesius, who describes himself as Father of 
Fathers in the religion of the Unconquered Sun-god Mithra, 
and at the same time claims to have been “born again to 
eternal life by the sacrifice of a bull and a ram”.’ But the 
Father of Fathers ranked as the highest dignitary, a sort of 
little pope, in the Mithraic hierarchy ;* accordingly we can 
hardly doubt that the example set by so exalted a prelate 
was often followed by the inferior clergy. In fact, we 
hear of another Father of Fathers who boasted, with honest 


1 Prudentius, Ferzstephan. x 1006- 
1050. Compare Firmicus Maternus, 
De errore profanarum religione, Xxvil. 
8, ‘*Neminem aput idola profusus 
sanguis munit,-et ne cruor pecudum 
miseros homines aut dectpiat aul perdat, 
polluit sanguis iste, non redimit, et fer 
varios casus homines premit in mortem: 
misert sunt gui profusione sacrileyt 
sanguints cruentantur, Tauribolium 
guid vel crtobolinm scelerata te san- 
guinis labe perfundit? Laventer ttague 
sordes istae quae colligis.” The pious 
apologist naturally seizes the opportunity 
to exhort his readers to wash in the 
blood of the lamb (aguas dez), which 
he assures them is a great deal more 
efficacious than bull’s blood for the 
purging of sin, 

2-H. Dessau, Juscriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, Nos.4118-4159 (vol. ii. Part I. 
pp. 140-147). For the forged dedi- 
cation, which professes to record the 
dedication of a ¢aurobolium ‘‘to the 
great god Mithra”, by a man who had 
been born again to eternal life by secret 


washings (‘‘arcanis fperfusiontbus in 
aeternum renatus”), see F, Cumont, 
Textes et Monuments, vol. ii. p. 179, 
Inscription No, 584. I follow F:Cumont 
and J. Toutain in thinking that the 
taurobolium formed no part of the 
Mithraic ritual. See F. Cumont, 7exfes 
et Monuments, 1. 334 sg.; J. Toutain, 
LesCultes patens dans l’ EmpireRomain, 
Premiére Partie, ii, p. 138. I have 
described the taurobolium elsewhere. 
See Zhe Golden Bough, Part IV., 
Adonts, Attis, Osirts, i. 274 sgg., with 
the references. 


3 F, Cumont, 7extes et Monuments, 
vol, ii. p. 96, Inscription No. 17; H. 
Dessau, /rscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 
No. 4152, ‘‘¢aurobolio crioboliog. in 
aelternum renatus”’, 


4 F, Cumont, 7extes e¢ Monuments, 
i. 317 5g., vol. ii. pp. 93-96, 98, 118, 
163, Inscriptions Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, II, 
12, 15,/17, 18) 26,27, 141, 404 20he 
Dessau, /rscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 
Nos, 4213, 4254, 9279. — 


WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 


X11 523 


pride, that not only he himself but his wife also, with 
whom he lived for forty years, had been washed in the 
blood of the bull.’ Another high dignitary of the Mithraic 
church was the Father of the Sacred Rites, though 
presumably he ranked below the supreme pontiff, the 
Father of Fathers.” Two of these Fathers of Sacred Rites 
similarly bragged of having been regenerated by the appli- 
cation of bull’s blood.’ Again, one of the inferior clergy, 
a simple Father and Sacred Herald of the Unconquered 
Sun-god Mithra, records that he too had partaken of the 
sacrament of the bull. This last prelate would seem to 
have mixed up his religions in a very liberal spirit, for, 
apart from the preferments which he held in the Mithraic 
communion, he informs us that he was priest of Isis, 
hierophant of Hecate, and arch-cowkeeper of the god 
Liber, who apparently laid himself out for cattle-breeding. 
And far from being ashamed of having been drenched with 
the blood of the slaughtered bull, this reverend pluralist 
prayed that he might live to repeat the performance 
twenty years later ;* for though in theory the blood was 
supposed to regenerate the votary for ever, it seems that in 
practice its saving efficacy could not safely be trusted to 
last longer than twenty years at the most, after which the 
sacrament had to be repeated.” Thus we may conclude that 
the worshippers of Mithra were often glad to practise a 
barbarous . rite which, though it formed no part of their 
own religious service, yet served to remind them of that 
supreme sacrifice to which they attached the deepest im- 
portance as being nothing less than the great central fact 
in the history of the world. 

The striking similarities which may be traced in certain 
points between Mithraism and Christianity were clearly 


1 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 


vol, ii. p. 95, Inscription No. 15, 
““tauroboliatus, pater patrum... 
tauroboliata”, 

2 F. Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
1o3il7en 

3 F, Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, 
pp. 95, 98, Inscriptions No. 14 
(‘‘tauroboliato . . . patri sacrorum”’), 


No, 23 (‘‘fater sacrorum det invictt 
Mithrae, taurobolio crioboliogue per- 


cepto’’), 

4 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
vol, ll. pp. 96 sg., Inscription No, 
20; H. Dessau, /ascriptiones Latinae 
Selectae, No. 4153. 

§ Compare H. Dessau, /nscriptiones 
Latinae Selectae, No. 4154, ‘‘ tlerato, 
vigintt annis expletis taurobolit sut”’, 
where, as Dessau notes, /auroboliz suz 
may be a stonemason’s mistake for 
laurobolio suo, 


The 
Christian 
Fathers 

on the 
similarities 
between 
Mithraism 
and 

Chris- 
tianity. 


Tertullian 
on the 
Soldier’s 
Crown. 


524. WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cuap. 


perceived by the Christian Fathers ; indeed we are indebted 
to their writings for our knowledge of some of the 
parallels which otherwise might have been forgotten. In 
accordance with their general theory of the world, they 
explained the resemblances as wiles of the devil, who sought 
to beguile poor souls by a spurious imitation of the true faith. 
Thus Justin Martyr tells us that in the mysteries of Mithra 
the evil spirits mimicked the eucharist by setting before the 
initiates a loaf of bread and a cup of water with certain 
forms of words.’ But the Father who appears to have 
possessed the most intimate knowledge of Satan and the 
greatest skill in unmasking him under all his disguises, was 
Tertullian, and to his ruthless exposure of the great Enemy 
of Mankind we are indebted for certain particulars which, 
but for his scathing denunciation, might long have been 
consigned to the peaceful limbo of oblivion. Thus in his 
essay on Zhe Soldier's Crown he reveals some points in the 
curious ritual observed when a Mithraic votary was promoted 
to the rank of soldier in the sacred hierarchy, for Mithraism 
had its Salvation Army. The ceremony took place in 
one of the crypts which formed the regular Mithraic 
temples. There a crown was offered to the candidate on 
the point of a sword, and a pretence was made of placing 
it on his head; but .he was instructed to wave it aside 
and to say that his crown was Mithra. Thus was his 
constancy put to the proof, and he was counted a true 
soldier of Mithra if he cast down the crown and said that his 
crown was his god.” This, according to Tertullian, was a 
diabolic counterfeit of the conduct of a true Christian who 
should learn to despise the glories of this frail fleeting world 
in the prospect of a better world that will last for ever. 
“What hast thou to do,” asks the Father in a glow of 
religious emotion, “what hast thou to do with flowers that 
fade? Thou hast a flower from the rod of Jesse, a flower 
on which hath rested the whole grace of the Holy Spirit, a 
flower incorruptible, unfading, eternal.” He reminds the 
Christian soldier of the Spirit’s promise: “ Be thou faithful 


1 Justin Martyr, Apol/og.i.66 (vol. i. 2 Tertullian, De corona militis, 15 
p. 268 ed. Otto); F. Cumont, Zextes (Migne, Patrologia Latina, ii. 101 sg.); 
et Monuments, vol, ii. p, 20. F, Cumont, Zexfes e¢ Monuments, 


ii, 50. 


x1 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 525 


unto death and I will give thee a crown of life” ;' and he 
recalls the boast of the great Apostle of the Gentiles uttered 
when the time of his departure was at hand: “I have fought 
a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the 
faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right- 
eousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me 
at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also 
that love his appearing.” ” 

Further, we learn from ‘Tertullian that among the The 
Mithraic rites there was a species of baptism at which re- yee 
mission of sins was promised to the initiate at the baptismal baptism 
font. This also, according to Tertullian, was a device of oe. 
Satan, whose cue it is to invert the truth by aping the holy 
sacraments in the mysteries of idols.’ In further proof of 
the craft and subtlety of the devil Tertullian adds: “ And 
if I remember aright, Mithra marks his soldiers on their 
foreheads: he celebrates the offering of bread: he enacts 
a parody of the resurrection ; and he redeems the crown at 
the point of the sword. Nay more, he enacts that his high 
priest shall marry but once, and he has his virgins and 
celibates.”* Here “the offering of bread” obviously refers 
to the same sacrament of. bread and water which Justin 
Martyr stigmatizes as a diabolic imitation of the eucharist. 

The virgins and celibates of Mithra appear to have antici- 

pated the nuns and monks of Christianity. It is not so 
certain what “the parody of the resurrection” alludes to. The ~ 
But from the words which Lampridius uses in describing NERS es 
the profanation of the mysteries by Commodus, it seems resurrec- 
clearly to follow that the death of a man by violence was nee 
dramatically represented in the mysteries. For the historian 

says that Commodus “ polluted the Mithraic rites with a real 
homicide, whereas the custom in them is only to say or to 
pretend something that creates an appearance of fright”. 


1 Revelation ii, 10. logia Latina, ii. 54 sg.); F. Cumont, 
2 2 Timothy iv. 7-8. The twotexts  7Zevxtes et Monuments, vol, il. p. 51. 
are briefly referred to by Tertullian ; are 
(Z.c.) in Np words : ‘ Bisto et tu fidelts i BN Men UA EA SARL Cle 
ad mortem: decerta et tu bonum agonem, pera taerercass 640: 
cujus coronam et Apostolus repositam 6 Lampridius, Commodus, ix, 6, 
stbt merito confidit”’. “Sacra Mithriaca homictdio vero pol- 


3 Tertullian, De praescriptionibus lutt, cum tlic aliguid ad spectem 
adversus haereticos, 40 (Migne, Patro-  timoris vel dtci vel fingi soleat”. 


526 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES cCuap. 


Again, Zacharias the Scholiast, in a life of the Patriarch 
Severus of Antioch, which must have been written about 
514 A.D., asks, “Why in the mysteries of the Sun do the 
pretended gods reveal themselves to the initiates only at 
the moment when the priest produces a sword stained with 
the blood of a man who has died by violence? It is because 
they only consent to impart their revelations when they see 
a man put violently to death by their machinations.”’ The 
mysteries of the Sun here referred to are probably those of 
Mithra, but the writer appears to be mistaken in supposing 
that human sacrifices ever formed part of the Mithraic 
ritual.” All that we can safely infer from his testimony, 
confirmed by that of Lampridius, is that one of the scenes 
acted in the mysteries was the pretended killing of a man, 
and that a bloody sword was produced in proof that the 
slaughter Had actually been perpetrated. We may con- 
jecture that the supposed dead man was afterwards brought 
to life, and that this was the parody of the resurrection 
which Tertullian denounced as a device of the devil. 

If the Mithraic mysteries were indeed a Satanic copy of 
oe a divine original, we are driven to conclude that Christianity 
shifted by took a leaf out of the devil’s book when it fixed the birth of 
the Church the Saviour on the twenty-fifth of December ; for there can 


from 
January6th be no doubt that the day in question was celebrated as the 


‘The date of 


ae birthday of the Sun by the heathen before the Church, by 
mas)to an afterthought, arbitrarily transferred the Nativity of its 
agen Founder from the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of 
pe pee December. From the calendar of Philocalus, which was 


the Birth of drawn up at Rome about 354 A.D., we learn that the twenty- 
the Sun. fifth of December was celebrated as the birthday of the 
Unconquered Sun by games in the circus.* These games 


Latinarum, i? Pars prior (Berlin, 1893), 


1 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
pp. 338 sg.; H. Usener, Das Weth- 


i, 361, quoting and translating a pass- 


age of a Syriac version. of the Life of 
the Patriarch Severus of Antioch by 
Zacharias the Scholiast, Das Leben des 
Severus von Antiochien, published by 
Spanuth, Gottingen, 1893. 

2 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
1, 69 5g7.,° 322. 

3 F, Cumont, Zextes et Monuments, 
i, 325 59. 339, 342, 355 sy.; Th. 
Mommsen, in Corpus IJuscriptionum 


nachtsfest*, Kapttel i,-iii, (Bonn, 1911) 
pp. 348 sg¢g.; L. Duchesne, Origines du 
Culte Chrétien ® (Paris, 1920), pp. 271- 
279; The Golden Bough, Part IV., 
Adonis, Alttis, Osiris, i, 302-305. 

4 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 
i.2 Pars prior, pp. 278, 338. The 
calendar of Philocalus is assigned to the 
year 354 A.D. by Th. Mommsen (0. cz. 
p.254) and H. Usener (Das Wethnachts- 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT ROMANS 527 


are mentioned by the Emperor Julian, who tells us that 
they were performed with great magnificence in honour of the 
Unconquered Sun immediately after the end of the Saturnalia 
in December.’ The motives which induced the ecclesiastical 
authorities to transfer the festival of Christmas from the 
sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of December are 
explained with great frankness by a Syrian scholiast on Bar 
Salibi. He says: “The reason why the fathers transferred 
the celebration of the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of 
December was this. It was a custom of the heathen to 
celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday 
of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. 
In these solemnities and festivities the Christians also took 
part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived 
that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took 
counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be 
solemnized on that day and the festival of the Epiphany on 
the sixth of January. Accordingly, along with this custom, 
the practice has prevailed of kindling fires until the sixth.” ” 
The custom of holding a festival of the Sun on the twenty- 
fifth of December persisted in Syria among the pagans down 
at least to the first half of the sixth century, for a Syriac 
writer of that period, Thomas of Edessa, in a treatise on the 
Nativity of Christ, informs us that at the winter solstice 
“the heathen, the worshippers of the elements, to this day 
everywhere celebrate annually a great festival, for the reason 
that then the sun- begins to conquer and to extend his 
kingdom”. But the pious writer adds that, though the 
power of the Sun waxes from that day, it will afterwards 
wane again; whereas, ‘“ Holy Church celebrates the festival 
of the Nativity of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, who 


begins to conquer error and Satan, and will never wane”.° 


Jest*, p. 348), but to 336 A.D. by L. 
Duchesne (Origines du Culte Chrétien®, 
Pow7eis 

1 Julian, Or. iv. p. 156 ed. Spanheim 
(vol. i. pp. 202 sg. ed. Hertlcin). 

2 C. A. Credner, ‘‘ De natalitiorum 
Christi origine”, Zectschrift fiir dte 
historische Theologie, iii. 2. (1833), 
p. 239, note ; Th. Mommsen, Corpus 
Inscriptionum Latinarum, i? Pars 


POR ADD) 1335 0.7us lL. nUsener, (as 
Wethnachtsfest*, pp. 349 sq. 

3 Fr, Cumont, ‘‘ La Célébration du 
‘Natalis Invicti’ en Orient”, Aevue de 
2?’ Histotre des Religions, \xxxii. (1920) 
pp. 85 sg., quoting Thomae Edesseni, 
Tractatus de Nativitate Domini nostrt 
Jesu Christz, textum syriacum edidit, 
notis illustravit, latine reddidit, Simon 
Joseph Carr, Romae, 1898, 


Worship of 


the Sun 
embraced 
by the 
Emperor 
Julian. 


528 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ARYAN PEOPLES Cu, xu 


This opposition between the natural Sun of the heathen and 
the metaphorical Sun of Righteousness of the Christians is a 
rhetorical commonplace of ecclesiastical writers, who make 
use of it particularly with reference to the Nativity.’ The 
pagan origin of Christmas is plainly hinted at, if not tacitly 
admitted. by St. Augustine in a sermon wherein he exhorts 
his Christian brethren not to-solemnize that day like the 
heathen on account of the sun, but on account of Him who 
made the sun.” Similarly Leo the Great rebuked the 
pestilent belief of those who thought that Christmas was 
to be observed for the sake of the birth of the new sun, as it 
was called, and not for the sake of the Nativity of Christ.® 

The last stand for the worship of the Sun in antiquity 
was made by the Emperor Julian. In a rhapsody addressed 
to the orb of day the grave and philosophic emperor 
professes himself a follower of King-Sun.* He declares that 
the Sun is the common Father of all men, since he begat us 
and feeds us and gives us all good things ;° there is no 
single blessing in our lives which we do not receive from 
him, either perfect from him alone, or at the hand of the 
other gods perfected by him.® And Julian concludes his 
enthusiastic panegyric with a prayer that the Sun, the King 
of the Universe, would be gracious to him, granting him, 
as a reward for his pious zeal, a virtuous life and more 
perfect wisdom, and in due time an easy and peaceful 
departure from this life, that he might ascend to his God in 
heaven, there to dwell with him for ever.’ However the 
deity to whom he prayed may have granted him a virtuous 
life, he withheld from his worshipper the boon of an easy 
and peaceful end. It was in the press of battle that 
this last imperial votary of the Sun received his mortal 
wound and met a most painful death with the fortitude 
of a hero and the serenity of a saint.2 With him the sun 
of pagan and imperial Rome set not ingloriously. 


1 Fr,Cumont, Zextes e¢ Monuments, * Julian, Or. iv. p.130 ed.Spanheim, 
1, 355 59. 6 Julian, ‘O7.:iV.c pp. 13%. ela ence 
* Augustine, Sexm, cxc, 1 (Migne’s Spanheim, 
Patrologia Latina, xxxviii, 1007). 6 Julian, Ov. iv.p.153 ed. Spanheim, 
3 Leo the Great, Sem, xxii, (al. xxi.) 7 Julian, Ov. iv, p.158 ed.Spanheim, 


6 (Migne’s Patrologia Latina, liv.198). 8 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxv, 3, 


CHAP OER ax 


THESWORSHIP 


OF THE SUN 


AMONG THE NON-ARYAN 


PEOPLES OF ANTIQUITY 


§ 1. 


The Worship of the Sun among the Ancicnt 


Babylonians and Assyrians 


IN ancient Babylonia the Sun was worshipped from im- The 


memorial antiquity. 


The ideogram of the Sun, like that 


worship of 
the Sun 


of the moon, in the Babylonian language is always preceded (Shamash) 


_by a determinative which implies divinity.’ 


The Semitic 


name both of the Sun and of the Sun-god in Babylonia is 
Shamash; the Sumerian name is Utu or Babbar;” for even 
before the Semites settled in the country the Sun-god was 


worshipped by their predecessors the Sumerians. 


The two 


great seats of Sun-worship were Larsa in the south and 


Sippar in the north of Babylonia. 


The site of Larsa is now 


marked by the mounds called Senkereh ; the site of Sippar, 
to the north of Babylon and to the south-west of Bagdad, is 


now occupied by the ruins of Abu Habba. 


In both cities 


the Sun-god was worshipped by the Sumerians, and in both 
his temple was called E-babbar or E-babbara, that is, “the 


House of the Sun’? 


In Babylonia the Sun-god Shamash 


is always masculine, but in south Arabia his namesake 


1 P, Dhorme, Za Religion assyro- 
babylonienne (Paris, 1910), p. 81. 


2 Br. Meissner, Badylonien und 
Assyrien (Heidelberg, 1920-1925), ii. 
19 sg.3; S. H. Langdon, in Zhe Cam- 
bridge Modern History, i,? (Cambridge, 
1924) p. 397. 

3H, Zimmern, in E, Schrader, Die 
Ketlinschriften und das Alte Testament3 
(Berlin, 1902), p. 367; P. Dhorme, 


Oats 


529 


La Religion assyro- babylonienne, 
p. 85. Zimmern translates E-babbara 
as ‘* wetsses Haus”, ‘* White House”. 
Others translate the words as ‘‘ house 
of lustre” or ‘“‘ bright house”. See 
M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Babylonia 
and Assyria (Boston, U.S.A., 1898), 
p. 70; L. W. King, Babylonian Re- 
“igion and Mythology (London, 1899), 
p. 18; Br, Meissner, Babylonien und 
Assyrien, ii, 21 (‘‘ glanzendes Haus"). 


2M 


in ‘Baby- 
lonia. 


The two 
great seats 
of Sun- 
worship at 
Larsa and 
Sippar. 


Popularity 
of the wor- 
ship of the 
Sun-god 
Shamash, 


Inferiority 
of Shamash 
to the great 
gods of the 
pantheon. 


Shamash a 
son of the 
Moon-god 
Sin, 


530 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES Cuar. 


Shams is feminine.’ The great temple of the Sun-god at 
Sippar, with its tower rising in stages, occupied a terrace 
1300 feet square on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, just 
south of the Royal Canal.’ 

There was no deity of the pantheon whose worship 
enjoyed an equally continued popularity from the earliest 
to the latest time both in Babylonia and Assyria. And 
through all that long period Shamash, Utu, or Babbar, 
retained the character of a solar god with scarcely any 
modification.? Yet, singularly enough, he did not rank with 
the greatest gods. He was not one of the supreme trinity, 
which comprised Anu, the god of heaven, Bel, the god of 
earth and of mankind, and Ea, the god of the abyss of 
water under the earth. He may be said to have formed - 
part of an inferior trinity, which included himself, and Sin, 
the god of the moon, and Ramman or Adad, the god of 
the atmosphere.* But even in this subordinate trinity the 
Sun-god Shamash was not the foremost. He was deemed 
a son of the Moon-god Sin. One of the early rulers of Ur 
calls the Sun-god the offspring of Nannar, which is one of 
the names of the Moon-god; and Nabonidus, the last native 
king of Babylonia, assigns to him the same father, so that 
from first to last the Sun-god ranked below the Moon-god 
in dignity. His inferiority was marked in other ways. In 
the list of gods drawn up by Babylonian and Assyrian 
kings and preserved for us in inscriptions, the Sun-god is 
always mentioned after the Moon-god; and the number 
assigned to him is only twenty, whereas the number of his 
father the Moon-god is thirty. Indeed, his very name is said 
to signify “attendant”, or “servitor”. This subordination of 
Sun-worship to Moon-worship is an interesting peculiarity of 
early Babylonian religion, in which, if we may say so, the 
sun seems to have been always eclipsed by the lesser 
luminary. However, at a later period, when the system 
of mythology was more fully developed, the solar deity 
to some extent emerged from the cloud, or rather from 
the shadow of the moon, which had so long obscured 


1H... Zimmern, Z¢.'377_ EB, “Meyer, 3M, Jastrow, 7he Relivion of 
Geschichte des Allertums*,i.2, p.376. Babylonia and Assyria, p. 68. 

2S. H. Langdon, in The Cambridge 4 L. W. King, Babylonian. Religion 
Ancient History, i.2 395. and Mythology, pp. 14, 17. 


XIII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 


531 


his radiance.’ Agumkakrime, one of the Cassite kings of 
Babylonia, in the second millennium before our era, even 

speaks of Shamash as “the Lord of Heaven and Earth” ;? 

and in an Assyrian inscription Shamash is repeatedly 
described as “chief of the gods”. Nevertheless, the 
Sun-god never played an impertant part in mythology.’ 

With him was associated, especially at Sippar, his wife 

Aya, Aia, Ai, or Aa, whose name appears to mean “ bride ”’. Ai, the wife 
She is often coupled with him in incantations, but seldom “ea a 
appears in historical texts.” In Sumerian she is also called 
Shenirda.© The Sun-god was blessed with a numerous 
progeny, including a son Kettu, whose name _ signifies 
Justice; another son, Mesharu, whose name means Right ; 
another son, Sumuqan, the God of Meadows; a daughter, 

the Goddess of Dreams; and several other deities who 
presided over cattle and fields.’ 

Originally the Sun-god made his way painfully across Thechariot 
the sky on foot, but in later times, with the progress of °°" 
civilization, a chariot was considerately placed at his disposal F 
with a charioteer named Bunene to drive him; the car was 
drawn by two fiery steeds or mules.2 Thus the god was 
enabled to accomplish the long journey in tolerable comfort. 

The Sun-god was represented as an old man with a long Represen- 
beard, and often with sunbeams radiating from his shoulders, “t'"s ° 


the Sun- 
Sometimes he is seen sitting on a throne; in Assyrian art god in art. 
1M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion of 


of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 74 5g.3 


Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 68 sg. ; 
L. W. King, Babylonian Religion and 
Mythology, pp. 17 sg.; H. Zimmern, 
in E. Schrader, Die Ketlinschriften 
und das Alte Testament3, p. 368; Br. 
Meissner, Badylonzen und Assyrien, 
ii, 19 sg. 

peter, ceriarper, 
Babylonian Literature, 
of Agumkakrime”’, p. 6. 

3 R, Campbell Thompson, Semztzc 
Magic (London, 1908), p. 26. 

4 Br. Meissner, Badylonien 
Assyrten, ii, 21. 

5 H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader, Dze 
Ketlinschriften und das Alte Testa- 
ment, p. 368; Br. Meissner, Badby- 
lonien und Assyrien, ii, 21; L. W. 
King, Babylonian Religion and Mytho- 
logy, p. 23; M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion 


Assyrian and 
‘¢ Inscription 


una 


R. F. Harper, Assyrzan and Babylonian 
Literature, p. 402, Jastrow shortens 
the name of the goddess to A, 


6 Br. Meissner, Babylonien und 
Assyrten, ii, 21, 
7 Br. Meissner, Aadylonien und 


MSivPie?,) ie 21s sae eeatnmern, In 
E. Schrader, Die Acrlinschriften und 
das Alte Testament®, p. 368; P. 
Dhorme, Za Religion assyro-bahy- 
lonienne, p. 84. 


8 Br. Meissner, Aadylonten und 
Assyrien, ii, 20; L. W. King, Bady- 
lonian Religion and Mythology, p. 323 
P. Dhorme, La Reltgion  assyro- 
babylonienne, pp. 81 sg., 84 59. ; 
H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s Die 
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testa- 
ment , p. 368. 


The solar 
disk. 


The gates 
of heaven. 


Hymns to 
Shamash, 
the Sun- 
god. 


532 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 


he is occasionally represented standing on a horse. In 
Babyionia his special emblem is a round disk with a 
four-pointed star within it and beams or flames flickering 
between the points of the star. On Assyrian monuments 
the disk is fitted with long wings, so that it presents a 
striking resemblance to the winged disk of the Sun in 
Egyptian art.’ 

In the solid dome of heaven there were thought to be 
two gates, one in the east and the other in the west, for the 
use of Shamash, the Sun-god, in his daily passage across the 
world. Coming from behind the dome of heaven, he passed 
through the eastern gate, and stepping out upon the 
Mountain of the Sunrise at the edge of the world, he began 
his journey across the sky. In the evening he came to the 
Mountain of the Sunset, and, stepping upon it, he passed 
through the western gate of heaven and disappeared from 
the sight of men. On a cylinder-seal he is represented 
standing in the eastern gate of heaven with one foot planted 
on the Mountain of the Sunrise.” 

In the following hymn addressed to the Rising Sun, the 
god is described entering the world through the eastern gate 
of heaven: 

‘“©O Shamash, on the foundation of heaven thou hast flamed forth. 
Thou hast unbarred the bright heavens, 
Thou hast opened the portals of the sky. 
O Shamash, thou hast ratsed thy head over the land. 
O Shamash, thou hast covered the lands with the brightness of 
heaven,” 8 


Another hymn addressed to the Setting Sun contains a 
reference to the return of the god into the interior of heaven: 


“O Shamash, when thou enterest into the midst of heaven, 
The gate bolt of the bright heavens shall give thee greeting, 
The doors of heaven shalt bless thee, 
The righteousness of thy beloved servant shall direct thee. 
Thy sovereignty shall be glorious tn E:-babbara, the seat of thy power, 
And At, thy beloved wife, shall come joyfully into thy presence, 
And she shall give rest unto thy heart. 


1 Br, Meissner, SAadbylonien und 2 L. W. King, Babylonian Religion 
Assyrien, it, 213; P. Dhorme, Za and Alythology, pp. 31 sg. 
Religion assyro-babylontenne, pp. 3 L. W. King, Babylonian Religion 
81 sg. and Mythology, p. 32. 


XIII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 533 


A feast for thy godhead shall be spread for thee. 
O valiant hero, eS anidshy mankind shall glorify thee. 
O lord of E-babbara, the course of thy path shall be straight. 
Go forward on the road which ts a sure foundation for thee. 
_ O Shamash, thou art the judge 2 the world, thou directest the decisions 
thereof.” } 


Every evening, when Shamash entered the innermost 
part of heaven he was met by Ai, his wife, and he feasted 
and rested from his labours in the abode of the gods,’ 

But Shamash was much more than a simple personifica- 
tion of the physical sun. On account of the conspicuous 
place which he occupies in the sky he attracted universal 
attention and received universal homage. ‘“ Mankind, all the 
people together, pay heed to him.” Even “the beasts, the 
four-footed creatures, look upon his great light”. All the 
sorts of men who engage in perilous undertakings by land or 
sea—the messenger, the mariner, the hunter, the merchant 
and his henchman, he who carries the weight-stones—pray 
to him before they set out on their journeys.’ Before an 
army marched to war, offerings were made to the Sun-god, 
and he was consulted as to the issue of the battle.* Before 
the king of Assyria appointed a man to a high office, he 
inquired of Shamash whether the man would be loyal to 
him or not.” And Shamash was gracious to the sufferer. 
“Him who is sick unto death he makes to live, and he 
delivers the captive from his bonds.” The woman in 
travail he supported in her hour of need.° The following is 
a prayer addressed to the Sun-god on behalf of a woman in 
child-bed : “O Shamash, lofty judge, father of the Black- 
headed ones, as for this woman the daughter of her god, 
may the knot that impedes her delivery be loosed in 
presence of the godhead! May this woman bring happily her 
offspring to the birth! May she bear! May she remain in 
life, and may it be well with the.child in her womb! May 


1 L, W. King, Babylonian Religion pare Sir E. A, Wallis Budge, Bady- 
and Mythology, p. 33. lonian Life and History? (London, 
2 L. W. King, Babylonian Religion aa 5)) pp. 135-137. 


and Mythology, p. 33. Per Meissner, Babylonien und. 


3 Br. Meissner, Babylonien und  Assyrien, i, 101. 
Assyrien, ii, 20, 167 sg.; for the 5 Br. Meissner, Badbylonien und 
merchant’s prayer to the Sun-god, see Assyrren, i. 133. 
id. i, 338; for the Sun-god as the 6 Br. Meissner, Sadbylonien und 
patron of hunters, see za. i. 224. Com-  <Assyrien, ii, 20. 


Universal 
homage 
paid to 
Shamash. 


Shamash 
gracious to 
sufferers. 


Shamash 
the 
supreme 
judge and 
source of 
law. 


Ham- 
murabi 
and the 
Sun-god. 


534 WORSATP OF SUN BY NON-ARKRYAN PEOPLES: CHAP; 


she walk in health before thy godhead ! 
happily delivered and honour thee.” ’ 

But in his capacity of the great luminary which lights 
up all the world, Shamash was conceived especially as the 
supreme judge, and hence as the fount of law and justice, the 
supporter of virtue and the avenger of vice and crime. In 
the epilogue to his code, the great king and law-giver 
Hammurabi or Hammurapi speaks of Shamash as “ the great 
judge of heaven and earth”; and the monarch expressly 
acknowledges that it is from Shamash the Sun-god that 
he received his laws.” Indeed, to put the solar inspiration 
of his code beyond a doubt, the monument on which the 
laws of Hammurabi are inscribed exhibits in sculpture the 
figure of the king standing in an attitude of adoration before 
the Sun-god, who is seated on his throne and is handing to 
Hammurabi a ring and staff in token of his divine commis- 
sion. The nature of the deity is plainly indicated by the three 
wavy sunbeams that emanate from each of his shoulders.’ In 
an inscription of Gudea, an early king of Lagash, under whom 
that city seems to have attained its highest degree of material 
prosperity,’ it is said that the Sun-god “tramples iniquity 
under his feet.”° Again, in an inscription of Ur-engur, 
king of Ur, we read that the king established the reign 
of justice “according to the just laws of the Sun-god.”° In 
legal as well as historical inscriptions Shamash is accorded 
the title of “judge of heaven and earth”. He is even called 
“the great judge of the gods”, or “the supreme judge of the 
Anunnakis”, that is to say, of all the terrestrial divinities. 
Hence he is, above all others, “ Lord of Judgment ” (6&4 dint), 
and from the, most ancient times his temple at Babylon was 


1 Br. Meissner, 


May she be 


Babylonien und 2450B.C. As to King Gudea, see S. H. 


Assyrien, i. 390. 

2-H. Winckler, Die Gesetze /fam- 
murabis (Leipzig, 1903), pp. 40, 413 
H. Gressmann, A/tortentalische Texte 
und Bilder (Tiibingen, 1909), i. 170; 
P, Dhorme, La Religion assyro-baby- 
lonienne, p. 83. 

3-H. Gressmann, <Allorientalische 
Texte und Bilder, ii, 58, Abb. 94. 

4 L. W. King, History of Sumer 
and Akkad (London, 1916), p. 259. 
According to King (0p. czt. p. 64), 
Gudea acceded to the throne about 


Langdon, in 7ke Cambridge Ancient 
History, i.* 426 sgg. Twelve diorite 
statues of Gudea have been found, 
most of them decapitated. One of 
them is perhaps the finest specimen of 
Sumerian sculpture (2. pp. 428, 429). 
In The Cambridge Ancient History, i.? 
670, the date assigned to Gudea is 
2600 B.C. 

6 P, Dhorme, La Religion assyro- 
babylonienne, p. 83. 

6 P, Dhorme, La Religion assyro- 
babylonienne, p. 83. 


xur «WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 


535 


called “the House of the Judge of the World” (#-ad7-kua- 
kalama).. In his capacity of a righteous judge the Sun-god 
“looks with a gracious eye upon the weak”; but “the 
unjust judge thou wilt put in bonds; him who takes bribes, 
who directs not the case aright, thou wilt punish. But as for 
him who takes not bribes and who pleads the cause of the 
weak, he is pleasing to the Sun-god, and the Sun-god will 
lengthen his life”. 

While this conception of the moral character of the Sun- The moral 
god as the patron of justice was early developed in Babylonia, ¢/“"'*" 
it was fully accepted at a later date in Assyria, where indeed Sun-god 
the ideas regarding Shamash reached a higher ethical level ees 
than those concerning any other deity. The national god in Assyria. 
Ashur and the mighty goddess Ishtar are partial to Assyria, 
and uphold her rulers at any cost; but the favours of 
Shamash are bestowed upon the kings because of their 
righteousness, or, what comes to much the same thing, 
because of their claim to be righteous. To the thinking of 
‘Tiglath-pileser the First, great and ruthless conqueror as he 
was, the Sun-god Shamash was the judge of heaven and 
earth, who beheld the wickedness of the king’s enemies and 
shattered them on account of their guilt. When the king 
captured alive all the kings of the countries of Nairi and 
mercifully granted them their lives, it was in the presence of 
Shamash, his lord, that he undid their bonds and set them 
free. It was therefore as champion of the right that Tiglath- 
pileser claimed to have received the glorious sceptre at the 
hands of the Sun-god.’ Especially in the days of Ashur- Promin- 
nasirbal and Shalmaneser the Second, in the ninth century “VC 


é of Sun- 
before our era, the worship of the Sun received great worship 


, der th 
prominence. These kings called themselves the Sun of the joter kings 
world.* Indeed, more than a thousand years before them of Assyria. 


King Hammurabi had dubbed himself the Sun-god of 
Babylon.’ Shalmaneser bestows many complimentary epithets 


ir Pe Dhorme,/.c. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian 


2 Br. Meissner, Badbylonten und 
Assyrien, i, 148, ii, 20, 1673; M. 
Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und 
Assyrtens (Giessen, 1905-1912), 1.435. 

3M, Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Baby- 
lonia and Assyria, pp. 209 sg.; R.F. 


Literature, ‘‘Inscription of Tiglath- 
Pilesen 14 ppecl 25) 10; 20: 

4M, Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Baby- 
lonia and Assyria, p, 210, 

& Br. Meissner, Aadbylonien 
Assyrien, i. 47. 


und 


The temple 
of Shamash 
at Sippar 
restored by 
Nebuchad- 
nezzar II. 


536 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


on Shamash, calling him the guide of everything, the 
messenger of the gods, the hero, the judge of the world, who 
leads mankind aright, and the lord of law.’ But in placing 
themselves under the protection of the great judge, the kings 
of Assyria were not unmindful of another aspect of the Sun- 
god’s nature, his warlike character. Tiglath- pileser calls 
Shamash “the warrior”, and declares that the Sun-god 
guarded him when Ashur, his lord, sent him forth on his 
career of conquest. The same title of “the warrior” is often 
given to Shamash in the religious literature.” 

The character of the Sun-god as at once the righteous 
judge and the great warrior is expressly acknowledged by 
Nebuchadnezzar the Second, king of Babylon, in an inscrip- 
tion in which he records how he repaired E-babbara, the 
temple of Shamash at Sippar, which had fallen into decay 
and was little more than a heap of ruins when the pious 
monarch undertook to restore it. Nebuchadnezzar says: “For 
Shamash, the lord, the exalted judge of heaven and earth, the 
great warrior, the worthy hero, the lord who dictates righteous 
decisions, the great lord, my lord, his temple, E-babbara, 
which is in Sippar, I built with joy and rejoicing. O 
Shamash, great lord, when thou joyfully enterest E-babbara, 
thy shining temple, ever look with favour upon the costly 
undertaking of my hand! May my gracious deeds be 
established on thy lips! By thy sure command may I be 
sated.with offspring. A long life and a firm throne do thou 
grant me! May my sway be long and extend forever! 
Adorn my kingdom forever with a righteous sceptre, with 
goodly rule, and with a staff of justice for the welfare of my 
people. Protect my people with strong weapons and with 
the onslaught of battle. Do thou, O Shamash, truly answer me 
in judgment and in dream! At thy noble command, which 
cannot be altered, may my weapons be drawn, may they 
wound, may they overthrow the weapons of the enemies!” ® 

In virtue, apparently, of his character as the great source 

1 M. Jastrow, The Religion of Baby- Warper, Assyrian and Babylonian 
lonia and Assyria, p. 210; F. R. Literature, ‘‘Inscription of Tiglath- 
Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian  Pileser I”, p. 19. 

Literature, ‘‘Monolith Inscription of 
Shalmaneser II.”, p. 33. 3 R. F, Harper, Assyrian and 


2M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Baby- Babylonian Literature, pp, 156 sg. ; 
lonia and Assyria, p, 2103; F, R. compare zd. p. 154. 


x11 WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 537 


of light Shamash was reckoned, like Apollo in Greece, the 
god of oracles and the patron of prophets and diviners. He 
is called the Lord of the Oracle. He was supposed to 
inscribe the oracular signs on the inwards of the sheep, in 
order that the diviner, by reading the signs, might predict 
the future. But he also condescended to answer in person 
the questions of his worshippers... The seers or diviners, 
whose profession was hereditary, being transmitted from 
father to son, traced their lineage to a certain fabulous 
Enmeduranki, king of Sippar, the favourite of the Sun-god, 
who lived before the great flood.? Hence these diviners 
occupied the first place among the officials of the temple 
of the Sun-god at Sippar.® But the oracular function was 
often shared by the Sun-god with the Thunder-god Adad 
(Ramman); inquiries were addressed to them in common ; 
together they ranked as “ Lords of Divination” (dé dérz).* 
A series of questions addressed to the oracular Sun-god 
by kings of Assyria has been preserved in inscriptions. 
They date from the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal 
in the seventh century before our era. All deal with 
matters concerning the state and the royal family ; hence 
they are valuable historical documents. All begin with 
the same form of words: “O Shamash, great lord! As I 
ask thee, do thou in true mercy answer me.” ‘Then follows 
the question, in which the priest, acting as mediator between 
god and man, asks whether certain political or warlike opera- 
tions will be carried out within a set time. Next follows 
a prayer that the Sun-god would not heed any imperfec- 
tions, impurities, or contaminations in the sacrificial lamb, or 
any shortcoming of the priest in dress, accent, or ceremonial 
purity. The first request is then repeated by the priest in 
a shorter form; the animal victim is inspected, and in a final 
prayer the Sun-god is besought to send a favourable oracle.’ 


1 Br. Meissner, Babylonien und EE, Schrader, Die Kezlinschrifien und 
Assyrien, ii, 20 sg., 66, 242; P. das Alte Testament, p. 368. 
Dhorme, La Religion  assyro-baby- 4 Br, Meissner, Babylonien und 
lonienne, p. 84. Assyvicit,. 1), 1242 3° P. pe La 

: ; religion assyro-babylonienne, p. 54. 

* Br. Meissner, Badylonien und a ae F. a rp Pee ¥ wd) a Baby. 
Assyrien, i. $3 s9., 66. lontan Literature, p. \xi; M. Jastrow, 

3 P, Dhorme, La Religion assyro- The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 
babylonienne, p. 84; H, Zimmern, in  p. 333. 


Shamash 
the god of 
oracles and 
the patron 
of prophets 
and 
diviners. 


Questions 
addressed 
toShamash 
by the 
kings of 
Assyria. 


538 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuapP, 


Questions 
addressed 
toShamash 
by King 
Esar- 
haddon. 


The following may serve as a specimen of these 
questions put by the king to the oracular Sun-god. The 
speaker is King Ksarhaddon, who, being hard pressed by 
a certain Kashtariti at the head of a group of nations, 
including the Medes, asks for an oracle from Shamash as to 
the outcome of the threatened danger : 

“Q Shamash, great lord! As I ask thee, do thou in 
true mercy answer me. 

“From this day, the third day of the month of lyar,! 
to the eleventh day of the month of Ab* of this year, a 
period of one hundred days and one hundred nights is the 
prescribed time for the priestly activity. 

“Will within this period, Kashtariti, together with his 
soldiery, will the army of the Gimirrites, the army of the 
Medes, will the army of the Manneans, or will any enemy 
whatsoever succeed in carrying out their plan, whether by 
strategy or by main force, whether by the force of weapons 
of war and fight or by the axe, whether by a breach made 
with machines of war and battering rams or by hunger, 
whether by the power residing in the name of a god 
or goddess, whether in a friendly way or by friendly 
grace, or by any strategic device, will these aforementioned, 
aS many as are required to take a city, actually capture 
the city Kishsassu, penetrate into the interior of that same 
city Kishsassu, will their hands lay hold of that same city 
Kishsassu, so that it falls into their power? Thy great 
divine power knows it. The capture of that same city 
Kishsassu, through any enemy whatsoever, within the 
specified period, is it definitely ordained by thy great 
and divine will, O Shamash? Will it actually come to 
Dass: 

Then having put his question, Esarhaddon proceeds to 
pray that no irregularity or omission in the ritual may vitiate 
the oracle. He says: 

“ Heed not what the chief offering of this day may be, whether good or 
bad; a stormy day on which tt rains / 


Heed not that something unclean may have produced uncleanness at the 
place of vision and rendered tt unclean ! 


1 The second month, lonta and Assyria, p. 3343; compare 
2 The fifth month, R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian 
3M. Jastrow, The Religion of Baby- ‘Literature, pp. 425 sg. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 539 


Fleed not that the lamb of thy divinity, which ts looked upon for vision, 
be imperfect and with blemish ! 

Heed not that he who touches the forepart of the lamb may have put on 
his garment for sacrifice as arshati (?) or have eaten, drunk, or rubbed 
himself upon soniething unclean! . . . 

Fleed not that in the mouth of the son of the seer, thy servant, a word 
may have been passed over in haste!” } 


The priest who is consulting the oracle next proceeds to Omens 

examine the victim before him, which is a lamb. A list of (°*", 
omens is introduced for the guidance of the officiating priest, state of the 
but not to be recited by him as part of the liturgy. He is cena 
instructed to observe whether “at the nape on the left side” 
there is a slit; whether “at the bottom on the left side of 
the bladder” some peculiarity is found, or whether it is 
normal; whether “the nape to the right side” is sunk and 
split, or whether the viscera are sound. The proportions, 
too, in the size of the various parts of the body appear to 
have been deemed important; hence a large number of 
points are mentioned to which the priest is to give heed. 
From a consideration of all the peculiarities and signs 
manifested in the victim, he divines the disposition of the 
god, whether it is favourable or the reverse. Finally, the 
ceremony closes with another appeal to the deity, entreating 
him to answer the question addressed to him. The priest 
prays, saying: 

“ By virtue of this sacrificial lamb, arise and grant true 
mercy, favourable conditions of the parts of the animal, a 
declaration favourable and beneficial be ordained by thy 
great divinity. Grant that this may come to pass. To thy 
great divinity, O Shamash! great lord! may it be pleasing, 
and may an oracle be sent in answer.” ” 

The foregoing is only one of a series of questions which Shamash 
Esarhaddon addressed to the Sun-god and which are pre- See Ss 
served for us in inscriptions. Again and again he beseeches 
Shamash to reveal the issue of the campaigns in which he 
was engaged. Again and again does his foe Kashtariti 
figure in these appeals to the divinity, along with the Medes, 
the Gimirrites, and the rest of hisenemies. We may conclude 

1 R.F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- and Assyria, pp. 33 


5 59. 
lonian Literature, p. 426; compare 2M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Baby- 
M., Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Babylonia  lonia and Assyria, pp. 337 59. 


540. WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES CHAR 


that a regular ritual for the procuring of oracles and the 
observation of omens was established in Assyria, and that 
the oracular god above all others was Shamash the Sun-god.’ 


Inscrip- It is probable that a similar ritual was observed in 
Hone daee Babylonia long before the rise of Assyria; indeed we have 
kakrime positive evidence of its observance in the reign of the Cassite 
ate King Agumkakrime or Agukakrime, about a thousand years 
before the time of Esarhaddon. For in a long inscription 
Agumkakrime boasts how he brought back to Babylon the 
image of Marduk which had been captured and carried away 
by enemies, and how in connexion with this enterprise he 
consulted Shamash by means of the lamb of a soothsayer.’ 
Long afterwards Nabonidus, the last king of Babylonia before 
the Persian conquest, tells us that when he was rebuilding 
the temple of the Moon-god Sin in Harran, he laid the 
foundation in a favourable month and on an auspicious day 
which had been revealed to him by Shamash.° 
History of On the history and ritual of the temples of Shamash in 
Spee: Babylonia our information is very scanty. The first mention 
at Larsa. Of the temple of the Sun-god at Larsa, in southern Babylonia, 


andSippat occurs in inscriptions of the first dynasty of Ur, dating about 


2900 B.C.* Ur- Bau, king of Lagash, who is thought to 
have reigned somewhere about 2500 B.C, tells us that he 
built a temple to Shamash at Larsa, but this may only mean 
that he restored an ancient one which had fallen into disrepair.’ 
A certain Enannatum, “who was chief priest in the temple 
of the Mcon-god at Ur, has left us an inscription upon clay 
cones, in which he records that he rebuilt the temple of the 
Sun-god at Larsa for the preservation of his own life and 
that of Gungunu, the King of Ur”.® This Gungunu is 


lonian 


1M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Baby- 
lonia and Assyria, pp. 338 sqq. 

2 R, F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- 
lonian Literature, ‘Inscription of 
Agumkakrime”, p. 3; compare M, 
Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Babylonia 
and Assyria, pp. 122, 152 sg.; Br. 
Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, ii. 
245. According to Meissner, Agum- 
kakrime reigned about 1600 B.c, This 
king’s name is spelled Agumkakrimi 
by Jastrow, Agumkakrime by Harper, 
and Agukakrime by Meissner. 

3 R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- 


Literature, ‘* Inscription of 
Nabonidus”’, p. 164; Br. Meissner, « 


Babylonien und Assyrien, ii, 245. 


4M. Jastrow, 7he Religion of Baby- 
fonia and Assyria, p. 69. 


5 M, Jastrow, /.c. As to Ur-Bau 
and his date, see L. W. King, Sumer 
and Akkad, pp. 258 sg., 361. Accord- 
ing to Professor Langdon in 7Zhe 
Cambridge Ancient History (i.2 373), 
Ur-Bau reigned about 2700 B.C, 


6 L. W. King, A7zstory of Sumer 
and Akkad, pp. 310 sg. 


XII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 541 


believed to have reigned about 2200 B.c.' The temple of 
Shamash at Sippar, in Northern Babylonia, was rebuilt by 
Naram-Sin, king of Akkad, who reigned about 2600 B.C.” 
The great Hammurabi, king of Babylonia, who reigned about 
2100 B.C.,° was strongly attached to the worship of the Sun- 
god Shamash, from whom, as we have seen, he professed to 
have received his laws. He enlarged E-babbar, the temple 
of Shamash at Sippar, the temple “which is like the fabric 
of the sky”; he also fortified Larsa, and there restored the 
other E-babbar for Shamash, his helper.* At a later time 
Kara-indash, one of the Cassite dynasty, who reigned over 
Babylonia about 1450 B.C., again restored the temple of the 
Sun-god at Larsa.° 

Still later the temple of the Sun-god at Sippar was The temple 
restored by King Nebuchadnezzar, but forty-five years later 0/Shamash 


at Sippar 
its walls had fallen in, as we learn from an inscription of restored 


Nabonidus, the last native king of Babylon, who restored the "8 
temple once more, perhaps for the last time. He recorded dus. 
the restoration as follows : 

“ For Shamash, the judge of heaven and earth, E-babbara, 
his' temple which is in Sippara, which Nebuchadrezzar, a 
former king, had rebuilt, after searching for its platform- 
foundation without finding it—that house he rebuilt, but in 
forty-five years its walls had fallen in. I became anxious 
and humble; I-was alarmed and much troubled. When I 
had brought out Shamash from within it and made him take 
residence in another house, I pulled that house down and 
made search for its old platform-foundation; and I dug to a 
depth of eighteen cubits, and Shamash, the great lord of 


1L, W. King, story of Sumer 
and Akkad, p. 362, Table III.s E. 
Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums?, i, 
2. p. 502. The latter historian dates 
Gungunu about 2000 B.c. According 
to Lhe Cambridge Ancient History 
(i.? 658), Gungunum, King of Larsa, 
reigned from 2264 to 2238 B.C. 

2 L. W. King, History of Sumer 
and Akkad, pp. 244, 361; E. Meyer, 
Geschichte des Altertums*, i, 2. p. 479. 

3 L. W. King, History of Babylon 
(London, 1915), pp. I1I, 320; Zhe 
Cambridge Ancient History, i.2 659. 

4H. Winckler, Die Gesetze Ham- 


murabis®, pp. 8 sg.; H. Gressmann, 
Altorientalische Texte und Bilder, i. 
141 sg. In another inscription Ham- 
murabi describes more fully his fortifica- 
tion of Sippar. See R. F. Harper, 
Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, 
‘*Inscription from a cylinder of Ham- 
murabi”, p. 2: ‘*I raised the battle- 
ments of the wall of Sippara, like a 
great mountain, with a swamp (moat) 
I surrounded it. I dug the canal of 
Sippara to Sippara, and supported it 
with a wall of safety”. 

5 M. Jastrow, Zhe Religion of Baby- 
lonia and Assyria, p. 144. 


Prayer of 
Naboni- 
tS. to 
Shamash, 


542. IVORSA/P OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PHOPLES {Cite 


I\-babbara, the temple, the dwelling well-pleasing to him, 
permitted me to behold the platform-foundation of Naram- 
Sin, the son of Sargon, which during a period of thirty-two 
hundred years, no king among my predecessors had seen. 
In the month Tishrit, in a favourable month, on an auspicious 
day, revealed to me by Shamash and Ramman in a vision, 
with silver, gold, costly and precious stones, products of the 
forest, sweet-smelling cedars, amid joy and rejoicing, | raised 
its brick-work—not an inch inward or outward—upon the 
platform-foundation of Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon. I 
laid in rows five thousand large cedars for its roof; I set up 
in its doorways high doors of cedar, thresholds and hinges (?). 
I built E-babbara, with its temple tower E-ilu-an-azagga 
anew and I completed its construction. I took the hands of 
Shamash, my lord, and with joy and rejoicing I made him 
take up a residence therein well-pleasing to him. I found 
the inscription, written in the name of Naram-Sin, the son of 
Sargon, and I did not alter it. I anointed it with oil, offered 
sacrifices, placed it with my inscription, and restored it to its 
place. ; 
“OQ Shamash, great lord of heaven and earth, light of the 
gods, his fathers, offspring of Sin and Ningal, when thou 
enterest K-babbara, thy beloved temple, when thou takest 
residence in thy eternal shrine, look with joy upon me, 
Nabonidus—king of Babylon, the prince, thy supporter, who 
hath gladdened thy heart and built thy lofty dwelling-place— 
and my gracious works! Give me favourable signs daily at 
the rising and setting of the sun in the heavens and on the 
earth! Receive my supplications and grant favour to my 
petitions! May I hold the legitimate sceptre and staff, which 
thou hast intrusted to me, forever and ever!” ! 

that the scribe may have reckoned as 
consecutive a number of dynasties which 
were contemporaneous, See L. W. 
King, History of Sumer and Akkad, 


pp. 60. 579.3. A. Cooks, ina 
Cambridge Ancient History, i2 155 sg. 


'R.F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- 
lonian Literature, ‘* Inscription of 
Nabonidus”, pp. 166 sg. The state- 
ment in the inscription that three 
thousand two hundred years elapsed 
between the time of Naram-Sin and 


that of Nabonidus has sometimes been 
used as a basis for reconstructing the 
early chronology of Babylonia. But 
it appears to be certainly erroneous 
and far in excess of the truth. To 
explain the error it has been suggested 


Sargon, father of Naram-Sin, was an 
ancient king of Akkad who reigned 
about 2650 B.c. His proper name was 
Shar-Gani-sharri, See L. W. King, 
History of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 216 
59g. 361, This Sargon I. is-not to be 


XIII 


WORSHTTP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 543 


The king’s prayer to the Sun-god was as vain as that 
which long afterwards the Emperor Julian addressed, in a 
fervour of devotion, to the same bright deity. For a few 
years more, and Babylon had fallen to the arms of Cyrus, 
and King Nabonidus was a captive. So little help, appar- 
ently, can the Sun-god give even to his royal and imperial 
worshippers. | 

Of offerings made to the Sun-god by his votaries the Offeringsto 
records appear to be few. Shar-Gani-sharri, king of Agade, urate 
better known as Sargon the First, dedicated to Shamash in 
his temple at Sippar a famous inscribed mace-head, which 
is now in the British Museum.’ Rimush, king of Kish, 
the son and successor of Sargon the First, added ten 
sheep for daily sacrifice to the ten which had previously 
been offered to the Sun-god at Sippar, thus bringing the 
number up to twenty sheep a day. He also doubled the 
other sacrifices, thus making a total of four oxen, six 
measures of corn, three measures of meal, and corresponding 
quantities of dates, oil, fat of swine, milk, and honey, besides 
the twenty sheep.?. Manishtusu, the successor of Rimush on 
the throne of Kish, after subjugating the rebel king of 
Anshan, led his captive into the presence of Shamash at 
Sippar, and lavishly enriched the temple of the Sun-god 
in gratitude for his victory. His restoration of the temple 
and the worship of the Sun-god is recorded in a long 
inscription engraved in twelve columns on a large cruciform 
stone.* Gungunum, king of Larsa (about 2264-2238 B.C.) 
dedicated two copper palm-trees and a great copper statue 


confounded with Sargon IT., the famous 
Assyrian king and conqueror, who 
captured Samaria in 722 B.c. See R. 
F, Harper, Assyrtan and Babylonian 
Literature, pp. \xxiii sgg. 

1L. W. King, Azstory of Sumer 
and Akkad, pp. 218, 361. Mr. King 
dates the reign of Sargon I. about 
2650 B.c. According to Professor 
Langdon, Sargon I, founded the 
empire of Agade about 2872 B.c. (Zhe 
Cambridge Anctent History, i.? 403). 
According to Br. Meissner, Sargon I. 
reigned from 2637 to 2582. B.C. 
(Babylonian und Assyrien, ii. 443). 
Thus King and Meissner agree fairly 


closely as to the date of Sargon I. and 
differ widely from Professor Langdon. 

2 Br. Meissner, Badbylonien und 
Assyrien, ii. 85. As to Rimush, see 
S. H. Langdon, in Zhe Cambridve 
Ancient History, i.2 408 s.g. Accord- 
ing to Br. Meissner (Badylonien und 
Assyrien, il, 443), he reigned from 
2581 to 2573 B.C. 

3 L. W. King, Héstory of Sumer 
and Akkad, pp. 231, 360. 

4 The Cambridge Ancient History, 
i.2 409. According to Br. Meissner 
(Babylonien und Assyrien, ii. 443), 
Manishtusu reigned from 2572 to 


2558 B.C, 


544. WORSATP OF SUN BY NON-ARVAN PEOPLES \cCHaT 


in the temple of the Sun-god.t. Nur-Adad, king of Larsa 
(about 2197-2182 B.C.) offered a golden throne to Shamash, 
and invested the high-priest of the god with due authority.” 
Inscription From an inscription of Nabupaliddin, king of Babylon, 
Sadia who réigned in the first half of the ninth century B.C. we 
learn that at some period the temple of Shamash at Sippar 
had been ruined in an invasion of a hostile people, the Sutu, 
that the image and insignia of the god had disap; eared, and 
had been vainly sought for by the king of Babylon; and 
that at a subsequent time, as a result of distress and 
famine, the regular sacrifices had been discontinued, and the 
drink offering had fallen into abeyance. The disappearance 
of the image was interpreted as a sign of the displeasure of 
the god, who had turned away his neck in anger. However, 
in the reign of King Nabupaliddin the deity relented and 
Recoveryof showed his favour once more. “ The relief of his image, cut 
eimageof in clay, his statue and insignia were found on the other side 
of the Euphrates towards the west ; and Nabunadinshum, 
the priest of Sippar, the seer, of the seed of Ekurshumushabshi, 
the priest of Sippar, the seer, showed Nabupaliddin, the 
king, his lord, that relief of the image; and Nabupaliddin, 
the king of Babylon, who had commanded him and 
intrusted him to replace that image, saw that image, and his 
countenance was glad and his spirit exultant; he directed 
his attention to replace that image, and with the wisdom of 
Ea... with pure gold and brilliant lapis lazuli, he carefully 
prepared the image of Shamash, the great lord. He washed 
his mouth according to the purification rite of Ea and 
Marduk, in the presence of Shamash in Ekarsaginna, which 
is on the bank of the Euphrates, and he (Shamash) took up 
his residence. He made offerings to his heart’s content, con- 
sisting of immense oxen and large sheep, and with honey, wine, 
Royal and grain in abundance he filled the granaries.” Further, 
seh ie King Nabupaliddin showed favour to Nabunadinshum, the 
the Sun- priest of the Sun-god at Sippar. He made him an allowance. 
Be of food and drink, the ancient dues of Shamash; also he 
assigned to him a garden, which a former king of Babylon 
had bestowed on a former priest of Shamash at Sippar. 


1 R. Campbell Thompson, in 7%e 2 R. Campbell Thompson, in Zhe 
Cambridge Ancient History, i.” 478. Cambridge Ancient History, i.* 481. 


XIII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 545 


Moreover, the king presented six fine garments of purple 
wool for the use of Shamash, his wife Ai, and his charioteer 
Bunene.’ Having recorded these and other munificent gifts 
to the Sun-god and his priest, the king concludes the record 
with the following solemn warning: “ Whoever in the future 
enters this palace as.ruler and renders null the gift of the 
King Nabupaliddin, or presents it to another, or cuts down 
the allowance, or reckons it as belonging to the prefect, or 
appropriates it to himself, or by some evil act destroys this 
tablet, as for that man, by the command of Shamash, A, and 
Bunene, lords of fates, the great gods, may his name pass 
away, may his seed perish, in distress and want may his life 
go out, may his corpse be cast out, and may he not be 
granted burial!” * On his accession to the throne Nabonidus, 
the last king of Babylon, offered six minae of gold as a tithe 
to the Sun-god at Sippar.’ 

Through the accumulation of votive offerings the temples Wealth of 
acquired a considerable degree of wealth and became the peti a 
monetary centres or banks of the community. As early as at Sippar. 
the time of the first dynasty the temple of Shamash at 
Sippar was ready to lend money or arrange loans in seed 
to farmers. In inscriptions of that period we read of a man 
who borrowed five and a half shekels from the Sun god 
Shamash at Sippar, agreeing to pay it back with interest at 
harvest ; and we read of another man who got a loan of 
ten measures of grain from a priestess of Shamash and 
promised to pay for it at a stipulated rate when the harvest 
came round. 

A ritual tablet furnishes us with some details as to the wor- Ritual of 
ship of Shamash at Sippar in the tenth century before our era.? e.worship 


of Shamash 
1 R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- 3 Br. Meissner, Badylonten una *™ PU AE: 
lonian Literature, ‘‘Inscription of  <Assyrten, ii, 86, 
Nabupaliddin”, pp. 30-32; P. Dhorme, 4 R, Campbell Thompson, in 7%e 


Choix de Textes' religieux assyro- Cambridge Anctent History, i? 534. 
babyloniens (Paris, 1907), pp. 385-397. 5 R, F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- 
As to Ai or A and Bunene, see above, J/onian Literature, ‘*A ritual tablet”, 
p. 531. As to the historical events pp. 399-407. Nothing is here said as 
recorded in the inscription, compare to the date of the tablet or the place 
L. W. King, Aéstory of Babylon  towhich it refers; but from a reference 
(London, 1915), p. 257. in R, Campbell Thompson’s Semztic 
Magic, p. xxii (compare p. xlii), I infer 
2 R. VF. Harper, Assyrian and that the tablet refers to the worship of 
Babylonian Literature, ‘Inscription ShamashatSippar, and that it dates from 

of Nabupaliddin”, p. 33. the first half of the tenth century B,c, 


VOL. I 2N 


Offering to 
Shamash 

before 

sunrise. 


546. WORSHIP OF SUN LY, NON-ARVAN PEOPLES. Cae 


In it directions are given that, “as soon as the horizon of 
the heaven is overcast with darkness”, the priest is to 
prepare three tables and place them in a row, the middle 
table for Shamash and Ramman (Adad), the left table 
for Aa, ‘the wife of Shamash, and the right table for 
Bunene, the messenger and charioteer of Shamash. Four 
clean rams are also to be provided, two for Shamash and 
Ramman, one for Aa, and one for Bunene. Directions 
are further given for distributing the flesh of the victims, 
for strewing cypress and cedar roots on three censers, and 
for pouring out sesame wine, and for a prostration to be 
performed by the priest. A lamb is to be sacrificed to the 
protecting god and a libation to be offered, with the words, 
“Shamash and Ramman, great gods!” Further, the seer 
is to place the divining-cup in position. Without a gift the 
seer shall not approach the place of judgment nor raise the 
staff of cedar; else the gods will not reveal the oracle to 
him. It is the diviner, who divines by means of oil, that 
shall cause the sacrificer to raise the cedar staff, he shall 
shake water upon the oil. If the sacrificial victim be found 
without blemish, “then shall the seer set himself before 
Shamash and Ramman upon the judgment seat, and give a 
true and righteous judgment. Then will Shamash and 
Ramman, the great gods, the lords of the oracle, the lords of 
the decision, stand up for him, make a decision for him, and 
answer him with true grace.” ’ 

In the same tablet directions are given for making an 
offering to Shamash before the rising of the sun. A censer 
is to be placed before Shamash, another before Ramman 
(Adad), another before Marduk, another before Aa, another 
before Bunene, another before Kettu, and another before 
Mesharu. Behind the censer which is before Shamash shall 
be set a table, and on the table shall be placed four jugs of 
sesame wine, thrice twelve wheaten loaves, and a mixture of © 


1 R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- 
lonian Literature, ‘A ritual tablet”, 
pp. 402 sg. The mode of divination 
referred to in the text is mentioned 
repeatedly in another inscription, where 
we read ‘‘the tablet of the gods, the 
tablet of the mystery of the heavens 
and of the earth, to observe the oil on 


the water, the secret of Anu, of Bel, 
and of Fa”, See P. Dhorme, Chozx de 
Textes 
(Paris, 1907), pp. 141, 143; compare 
H. Zimmern, in FE, Schrader, Deve 
Ketlinschriften und das Alte Testament’, 


PP- 533 5g. 


religteux assyro-babyloniens 


XIII WORSHIP IOF SUN AHONG BABYLONIANS 547 


honey and curds, sprinkled with salt. ‘“ The censer which is 
before Shamash thou shalt strew, take the hand of the 
sacrificer, and speak thus: ‘May So-and-so, thy servant, 
offer a sacrifice at the rising of the sun, may he raise the 
staff of cedar, and stand in the presence of thy great 
divinity ; may thy great divinity be well pleased with refer- 
ence to this sheep, all of whose flesh is unblemished, whose 
appearances are auspicious’, Thereupon thou shalt offer the 
sacrifice,” ! 

A scene of worship in the temple of the Sun-god at 
Sippar is sculptured in relief on a well-known Babylonian 
tablet, which is now in the British Museum. On the lower 
part of the tablet are inscribed the records of the bene- 
factions conferred on the temple by Nabupaliddin (Nabit- 
apal-iddina), king of Babylon.” The upper part contains 
the sculptured relief. The Sun-god is represented sitting 
within a shrine upon a throne, the side of which is carved 
with two mythical figures ; he has a long beard and wears a 
high pointed cap and a flowing robe, which reaches to his 
ankles. In his extended right hand he holds a disk and 
bar, “which may be symbolic of the sun’s orbit, or eternity ”. 
Above his head are the three disks emblematic of the Moon, 
the Sun, and the planet Venus. The roof of the shrine is 
supported by a column in the form of a palm-trunk standing 
immediately in front of the seated deity. Before the shrine 
is a square altar, on which rests the disk of the Sun. Within 
the disk is a four-pointed star with wavy lines between the 
points to represent sunbeams. The disk is held in position 
by means of ropes tightly drawn in the hands of two divine 
beings, whose busts are seen projecting from the celestial 
canopy just above the capital of the supporting column. 
Approaching the disk are three figures, much smaller than 
that of the seated Sun-god. The first of the three is the high 
priest of the Sun-god, who is leading the king to worship 
the disk, the symbol of the solar deity ; the last of the three 
figures is an attendant goddess holding up her hands in an 
attitude of adoration. The shrine of the god rests upon the 


1 R.F. Harper, Assyrian and Baby- the children of the Sun-god, see above, 
lontan Literature, ‘A ritual tablet”,  p. 531. 
pp. 403 sg. As to Kettu and Mesharu, * See above, pp. 544 59. 


Sculptured 
representa- 
tion of the 
worship of 
the Sun- 
god at 
Sippar, 


The 
Sun-god 


Shamash . 


invoked in 
exorcisms. 


548 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PLOPLE SS aae 


Celestial Ocean, which is indicated by wavy lines that run 
the whole length of the relief. Within the water of the 
Ocean are seen four small disks, each containing a star ; 
they may perhaps stand for the four cardinal points of the 
sky. The text inscribed below this relief describes the 
restoration of the temple of the Sun-god by two kings 
named Simmash-shipak (about 1030 B.C.) and E-ulmash- 
shakin-shum (about 1020 B.c.).- It then proceeds to say ° 
that Nabupaliddin (Nabf - apal -iddina), king of Babylon, 
found and restored the ancient image of the Sun-god and 
the sculptures of the temple, which had been overthrown by 
the enemies of the country. The shrine of the god had 
been stripped of its beautiful ornaments, and its ancient — 
endowments had been appropriated for profane uses. But 
when Nabupaliddin came to the throne, he resolved to take 
vengeance on the foe who had perpetrated this shocking 
sacrilege, to found again and to endow again the shrines of 
the gods, and to institute regular festivals and offerings. 
Moreover, he adorned the ancient figure of the Sun-god with 
gold and lapis lazuli. The text concludes with a list of the 
offerings which the king dedicated to the temple, and 
enumerates at length the various garments and apparel 
which the priests were to wear on holy days and at festivals. 
The tablet was engraved in the ninth century B.c., but the 
sculptured scene of Sun-worship at the top was probably 
copied from a much more ancient relief. } 

The Sun-god Shamash was believed to possess power 
over demons, witches, and wizards; hence in incantations 
he was besought to deliver the haunted, the sick, and the — 
bewitched from the snares and spells of these maleficent 
beings. Thus when a man was haunted by the ghost of a 
dead relative, the exorcist was directed to take two threads, 
one scarlet and the other of many colours, to spin the 
two together, and to tie seven knots in the string, and 
while he tied the knots he was to repeat the following 
incantation : 





1 Guide to the Babylonian and p.19; M. Jastrow, Bildermappe sur 
Assyrian Antiguities in the British Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, 
Museum (London, 1922), pp. 69-71, ‘Fig. 94; H. Gressmann, 4//orventa- 
with plate xxvi. Compare L, W. King,  /ésche Texte und Bilder, ii. 57, Abb. 
Babylonian Religion and Alythology, 92. 


XIII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 549 


“O Sun-god, king of heaven and earth, judge of what ts above and below, 
lord of the dead, ruler of the living, 
O Sun-god, the dead who have risen and appeared, whether the ghost of 
my father or of my mother, or the ghost of my brother, 
Or of my sister, let them accept this, and leave me free!” 


Further, in order to make sure of laying the ghost, an Effigy 
effigy of the dead man was to be made and buried in a grave, “™PIOv? 
while at the same time an effigy of the haunted person was 
to be made and washed in pure water by way of signifying 
his riddance of the ghost.’ 

Another incantation contains an appeal to the Sun-god Shamash 
to undo the enchantments of sorcerers. It runs as follows: va 3 

“It is thee whom I have invoked, O Shamash, in the against 
midst of the bright heavens; sit down in the shadow of iis an, 
cedar), let thy feet rest’ on the root of a cypress. -The 
countries acclaim thee, they throw themselves before thee, 
uttering cries of joy. Thy brilliant light beholds all the 
peoples ; thy net is cast on all the lands. .O Shamash, thou 
-knowest all the spells that enchain them ; thou destroyest 
the wicked, thou dost undo the enchantments, the signs, the 
fatal omens, the heavy, evil dreams; thou cuttest the bonds 
of wickedness, which destroy peoples and lands. Such as 
have wrought enchantments, sorcerics, evil witcheries, O keep 
them not before thee; to the bright Nisaba” deliver their 
images, the images of those who have wrought witcheries 
and planned iniquity, whose heart meditates a multitude of 
wickednesses. Be propitious, O Shamash! light of the 
great gods! May I be strong in the face of the author of 
my enchantment ; may the god who begat me stand fast at 
my side; over the purification of my mouth, over the right- 
eousness of my hands, keep watch, O Lord! light of the 
world ! Shamash, thou judge!” ® 

Again, before an image-maker felled a tree of which Prayer to 
the wood was to be uscd to make images, he had to pray poems" 
to the Sun-god, saying, “O Shamash! august lord, sublime felling a 
judge, overseer of the world and of the sky, sovereign of "eo" 
the dead and of the living, I fell a divine tree, a sacred 

1 R, Campbell Thompson, Semitic demons, See M. Jastrow, 7he Religion 
Magic (London, 1908), pp. 33 5¢. of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 101. 


2 A goddess, who, along with Ea, 3 C, Fossey, La Magie assyrienne 
was besought to break the power of (Paris, 1902), pp. 293, 295. 


Prayers to 
the Sun- 
god on 
behalf 

of persons 
bewitched 


530 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARVAN PEOPLES cuap. 


tamarisk, a holy tree, whereof to make images which I will 
place in the house of So-and-So, son of So-and-So, to lay 
low the wicked spirits. I kneel before thee. May all that 
I do succeed and prosper!” . Having said so he was to 
fell the tree with a golden axe; then from the wood he 
was to make seven images of the seven gods in their proper 
costume and hats; on a pedestal of tamarisk wood he was 
to place them, clad in grey clay as in a garment.! 

The following prayer or incantation is addressed to the 
Sun-god on behalf of a man on whom a spell has been cast : 


“O Shamash ! from the depths of the sky thou lightest thy lamp, 
Thou undoest the bolt of the bright heavens, 
O Shamash! upon the lands thou liftest up thy head. 
O Shamash! thou coverest with light the heavens and the earth, 
To the peoples afar off thou gtvest the light. 
All the witchcraft that ts in his body, let it come forth / 
Let him shine like bright copper / 
Dissolve thou his enchantment / 
To the end of his life may he tell of thy grandeur, 
And I, the exorcist, thy servant, may I be able to celebrate thy 
worship.” * 


Another prayer or incantation addressed to the Sun-god 
by a man who has been bewitched is as follows : 


“ O Shamash / 

Make me to live, to the pure hands of my god and of my goddess, 

For my salvation and life, do thou commit me. 

O Shamash! thou art the king of heaven and earth, thou governest the 
world above and below. 

O Shamash! tt is in thy power to give life to the dead, to deliver the 
capuve. 

Thou art a judge incorruptible, thou governest mankini. 

Illustrious scion of the lord of tllustrious origin, 

Mighty son, bright light of the lands, 

Thou dost tllumine the whole heaven and earth, O thou, Shamash / 

O Shamash ! because the charm ts not yet broken which has fastened on 
me now many a day, 

Wasting and corruption and an evil plight of flesh are in me; 

By man, by the beasts of the fields, by all that bears a name, the charm 
doth break me; 

It hath filled me with sickness, with weakness tneurable ; 

By the breaking of my heart and the evil plight of my flesh T am 
undone. 


1 C, Fossey, La AMagie assyrienne, pp. 309, 311. I have omitted some 
pp. 132 sg. obscure or fragmentary lines, 
2 C, Fossey, La Magte assyrienne, 


XIII WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG BABYLONIANS 551 


And /, day and night, Tam without repose ; 

Lam in darkness, 1 am afflicted, [am full of anguish ; 

Ry pain and lamentation [am brought low. 

My fault, I know tt not, of the crime that I have committed I am 
tenorant, 

WVhen I was young, I sinned ; 

TL transgressed the commandments of my God.” } 


The Sun-god Shamash is often brought into relation with Grove of 
other deities. We have seen that he is frequently coupled sree 
with Adad (Ramman) in the giving of oracles. At the ancient LA 4 at 
city of Eridu, which formerly stood on the shore of the : 
Persian Gulf, though the sea has long retreated from it, we 
‘ hear of a holy grove, like a forest, untrodden by the foot of 
man, where in the deep shade the Sun-god dwelt with 
Tammuz, the spirit of plant life which blooms in spring to 
wither in the scorching heat of summer.” It is interest- 
ing to find the personification of the short-lived blossoms 
thus dwelling side by side in the same shady grove with 
the personification of the sun, who might be thought his 
cruel foe. 

Again, when Ishtar (Astarte), the goddess of love, had Shamash 
descended to the nether world, and the life both of men and ee 
of animals was consequently threatened with extinction, her back ; 
brother Shamash, the Sun-god, went to their father Sin, the (Asatte) 
Moon-god, and with tears running down his face explained fom the 
to him the melancholy situation. He said: “Ishtar has ate 
gone down into the earth, and has not yet come forth; after 
Ishtar had descended to the land of No-Keturn, the bull did 
not mount the cow, nor did the ass leap upon the she-ass, 
the man did not approach the maid in the street, the man 
lay down to slecp upon his own couch, while the maid slept 
by herself”. Apparently the Moon-god had no remedy to 
suggest for this alarming state of affairs; at least, if he 
offered any remarks on the subject, they have not been 
recorded by the scribe. However, the great god Ea took 
measures promptly to bring back the goddess of love to the 
upper earth and so to set the tide of life flowing once more. 


He sent down a messenger to Allatu, the goddess who kept 


1 Francois Martin, Zextes relivieux Etudes, Fascicule 130). 
assyriens et babyloniens (Paris, 1900), 2 P, Dhorme, Chotx de Textes re- 
p. 15 (Biblrotheygue del’ Lecole des Hautes lgieux assyro-babyloniens, p. 99. 


Dialogue 
between 
Shamash 
and 
Gilgamesh. 


Worship of 


the Sun 
among the 
ancient 
Arabs. 


WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES CHuap. 


552 


the infernal gaol, with orders that she was to release Ishtar 
at once. The grim Fury received the command with any- 
thing but good humour ; indeed, she cursed the messenger 
in very bitter words, saying, “I will curse thee with a fearful 
curse. The food of the sewage of the city shall be thy food, 
the gutters of the city shall be thy drinking-place, the 
shadow of the wall shall be thy station, the threshold shall 
be thy place of residence, may dungeon and _ prison-house 
destroy thy strength!” But for all her rage she could not 
resist the orders of the great god. So Ishtar was sprinkled 
with the water of life and led out through the seven gates of 
hell, which opened to let her pass; and at every gate there 
was restored to her one of the ornaments of which she had 
been stripped on her descent to the nether world.’ 

Again, we possess a short and unfortunately fragmentary 
dialogue between the Sun-god and Gilgamesh, the hero of 
the famous Babylonian epic which bears his name. Mourning 
for his dead friend and wandering the world over to find the 
secret of immortality, Gilgamesh came to the Sun-god, 
to Shamash. Byt Shamash was sad and said to him, 
“Gilgamesh, why runnest thou hither and thither? The 
life that thou seekest thou shalt never find.” Gilgamesh 
said to him, to the warrior Shamash, “Since ] have been 
roving the earth like the da/u bird, have the stars above the 
earth diminished? I have lain down for years together. 
O that my eyes may behold the sun! that I may satisfy 
myself with the light! Darkness is far off when the light is 
abundant. O that the dead might behold the gleam of the 
sun!”? 


§ 2. The Worship of the Sun among other Anctent Semttes 
The evidence for the practice of Sun-worship in other 
branches of the Semitic race is very scanty, though it might 


RLF. Harper, Assyrian and Baby. Bilder, i, 65-69; R. W. Rogers, 


lontan Literature, pp. 411-413. Com- 
pare L. W. King, Babylonian Religion 
and Mythology, pp. 178-183; P. Jensen, 
Assyrisch-babylonische Mythen und 
Epen (Berlin, 1900), pp. 81-91; P. 
Dhorme, Chotx de Textes religreux 
assyro-babyloniens, pp. 327-341; H. 
Gressmann, A/tortentalische Texte und 


Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testa- 
ment (Oxford, 1912), pp. 121-131. 


2 P, Dhorme, Chotx de Textes re- 
ligienx assyro-babyloniens, pp. 199- 
301. Compare A. Ungnad und H, 
Gressmann, Das Gtlgamesch - Epos 
(Gottingen, 1911), pp. 70 sg. 


xt WORSHIP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT SEMITES 553 


be rash to infer the absence of the worship from the scarcity 
of the records. According to Strabo, the Nabataeans, in 
northern Arabia, worshipped the Sun; they built altars to 
him on the roofs of their houses and poured libations and 
burned incense in his honour day by day.’ With regard to 
the heathen Arabs we are told that Shams, that is, the Sun, 
“was an idol of the Banu Tamim; he had a house and all 
the Banu Udd worshipped him”.* Here Shams is spoken 
of in the masculine gender, but only because the word for 
“idol” is masculine. The deity was in reality feminine and 
was known simply as “the goddess”. In Palmyra, where Worship of 
in later times, as we have seen, there was a well-developed Se 
worship of the Sun,® Shams was also masculine, but this was 
probably an effect of foreign, perhaps Greek, influence ;* for 
in Greek mythology the Sun was always masculine. Arainaic 
inscriptions found at Palmyra record votive offerings to 
Shamash, the Sun-god: one of them contains the dedication 
of an altar and a sun-pillar to him ;° another mentions the 
dedication of six pillars, their beams, and their coverings to 
Shamash, jointly with Allath and Raham, “the good gods”. 
Among the stately ruins of Palmyra, where the long line of 
dazzling white columns presents a striking and picturesque 
contrast with the yellow sand of the desert, the remains of 
the temple of the Sun are the most magnificent objects and, 
being of the Ionic order, relieve the monotony of the 
prevailing and ‘more florid Corinthian style.’ 

There is nothing to suggest that in their nomadic life No positive 
the Israelites were worshippers of the Sun; and even after sates 
they had settled in Palestine positive evidence of such a wership in 
worship is lacking before the times of the kings. In Sadat 
default of such evidence the theory of a worship of the 
Sun among the early Israelites rests on the slippery founda- 
tion of etymological speculation, in which the towns of 
'Beth-Shemesh, “House of the Sun”, and En-Shemesh, 


As 


1 Strabo, xvi. 4. 26. 


2 J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen 
Hleidentums? (Berlin, 1897), p. 60. 


3 Above, pp. 500 sy. 
4 J. Wellhausen, /.c. 


5 A. G. Cooke, Zext-book of North- 
Semitic Inscriptions (Oxford, 1903), 


pp. 298 sg., Inscription ‘No, 298. 
tg sun-pillars compare M. J. Lagrange, 
Etudes sur les Religions sémitiques* 
(Paris, 1905), pp. 213-215. 

BiG Ar Cook secpa ctl. D275, 
Inscription No, 117. 

7 William Smith, Dictionary of Greek 
and Roman Geography, ii. 537. 


Worship of 
the Sun at 
Jerusalem 

under King 
Miapasseh, 


The 
reformation 
of King 
Josiah. 


§54 °° WORSHIP OF SUN BY(NON-AKR YAN PROP ES Chae 


“Fountain of the Sun”, naturally figure prominently. 
On the strength mainly of his name, which means “ solar ”, 
Samson has often been explained as a solar hero or god, 
and in support of this view it has been remarked that he 
belonged to the tribe of Dan, the name of which means 
“judge”, the title so often bestowed on the Babylonian 
Sun-god Shamash.’ 

But while the evidence for a primitive cult of the Sun 
in Israel is at best very dubious, there is no doubt that 
in later times the worship gained a foothold in the kingdom. 
Manassch, the idolatrous king of Judah, worshipped all 
the host of heaven and built altars for them in the two 
courts of the temple at Jerusalem,” and in the host of 
heaven he would necessarily include the Sun and Moon. 
As Manasseh reigned for fifty-five years, the example set by 
the king was doubtless followed by many of his subjects. 
Later on, in the same century, the. pious King Josiah 
abolished the worship of the heavenly bodies; he caused 
the vessels that had been used in the idolatrous service to 
be carried out of Jerusalem and to be burned, and the very 
ashes of them to be conveyed away to Bethel; and he put 
down the idolatrous priests and those who had_ burned 
incense to Baal, to the Sun, and to the Moon, and to the 
planets, and to all the host of heaven.* And in the book of 
Deuteronomy, which is generally believed to have been 
published by King Josiah in 621 B.C. and made the basis 
of his reformation, the penalty of death by stoning is 
denounced against any man or woman who should, by 
the testimony of two witnesses, be proved guilty of the 
abominable crime of worshipping the sun, or the moon, or 
any of the host of heaven; the witnesses were to cast the 

1 Encyclopaedia Biblica,s.v.“Nature- D.D., Zhe Samson-Saga (l.ondon, 
worship”, vol. iii. coll. 3355-3356; z@., 1913); C. F. Burney, Zhe Book of 
s.v. **Samson”, vol. iv. coll, 4268- Judges (London, 1918), pp. 391 sgg. 
4270. As to the solar theory of The theory has been rejected by Fr. 
Samson, see HI], Steinthal, ‘‘TheLegend Baethgen, Aet/rage zur semitischen 
of Samson”, in Ignaz Goldziher’s  Ae/égvtons-geschichte (Berlin, 1888), pp. 
Mythology among the Hebrews (London, 161 sgg., and by G. F., Moore, Critical 
1877), pp. 392-446; A. Jeremias, Das and Exegetical Commentary on Judges 
Alte Testament tm Lichte des Alten (Edinburgh, 1903), pp. 364 sg. 
Orients® (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 478-482; 


Paul Carus, Zhe Story of Samson 
(Chicago, 1907); A, Smythe Palmer, 3 2 Kings xxiii. 4-5. 


2 2 Kings xxi, 1-5. 


Mine WORoOTP OF SUN AMONG ANCIENT SEMITES ° 555 


first stones at him or her.’ The prophet Jeremiah, a Jeremiah 
contemporary of King Josiah, predicts that “they shall Pane 
bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of Sun and 


his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of Sone 
the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
out of their graves: and they shall spread them before 
the sun, and’ the moon, and all the host of heaven, 
whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and 
after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, 
and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be 
gathered, nor be buried”.” In another passage the same 
stern prophet foretells the desolation that shall come upon 
“all the houses upon whose roof they have burned incense The wor- 
unto all the host of heaven”.’ Similarly the prophet aS 
Zephaniah speaks with indignation of “them that worship 

the host of heaven upon the housetops”.* Hence we may 

infer that the idolatrous Israelites, like the Nabataeans, 
adored the Sun on the roofs of their houses. King Josiah 

broke down “the altars that were on the roof of the upper 
chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made”, and 

he cast the dust of the broken altars into the brook 
Kidron.’ Probably these altars on the roof were conse- 
crated to the worship of the Sun and the other heavenly 
bodies, like the altars on the roofs of houses among the 
Nabataeans. 

Further, the royal reformer and ardent iconoclast The 
“took away the horses that the kings of Judah had une te 
given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the of the 
Lord, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, Ron 
which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the 
sun with fire”.°. This is the only notice in the Old Testament 
of horses and chariots: dedicated to the Sun in the temple 
at Jerusalem ; but from the Jewish commentators it appears 
that the horses were not kept for sacrifice, but that they were 
harnessed to the chariots and driven out towards the east to 


meet and worship the sun at his rising.’ We may conjecture 


1 Deuteronomy xvii. 2-7. ON2 RINGS KX, Ts 

2 Jeremiah viii, 1-2, 7S. Bochart, /zerozozcon, editio 
3 Jeremiah xix, 13. tertia (Leyden, 1682), vol. -i. coll. 
4 Zephaniah i. 5. \ 176s9.; G.F. Moore, in Encyclopaedia 


i 


972 Kings xxii, 12, Biblica, s.v. ‘‘ Nature-worship”, vol. iii, 


556 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYVAN PEOPLES ciuav. 


that the chariots and horses were placed at the disposal of 
the Sun to enable him to accomplish his journey across the 
sky in ease and comfort. We have seen that the notion of 
the Sun driving in a chariot across the sky was common to 
the Vedic Indians, the Iranians, the Greeks, and the Babylon- 
ians, and that the Rhodians were wont annually to throw a 
chariot and horses into the sea for the use of the Sun.’ 
Ezekiel's Yet the sweeping reformation instituted by King Josiah 
Yaa would seem to have failed to eradicate the seeds of Sun- 
shippers of worship from the minds of the Israelites ; for in the following 
the Sun at P e.8 : , 
the gate of Century the prophet Ezekiel, writing in exile by the waters 
the temple. of Babylon, describes how in a vision he was brought to the 
temple at Jerusalem and saw there at the gate women 
weeping for Tammuz, and how in the inner court, between the 
porch and the altar, he beheld five and twenty men with their 
backs towards the temple and their faces tqwards the east, 
and they were worshipping the Sun and putting the branch 
The to their noses. The pious Job speaks of the practice of 
etiuthe kissing the hand to the sun as a heathen custom and a 
the Sun. punishable offence. He says: “If I beheld the sun when it 
shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart 
hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my 
hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the 
judge: for I should have denied the God that is above”.’ 


§ 3. The Worship of the Sun among the Ancient Egyptians * 


Prevalence Among all the peoples of antiquity none adored the Sun 


eu ., so fervently and so long as the Egyptians. Indeed, the Sun- 


aon god may be said to have occupied the foremost place in the 
6yP national pantheon and to have tended from time to time to 


3356. It has sometimes been thought <A. Erman, Die dgyfptische Religion? 
that the horses were statues; but (Berlin, 1909), pp. 10-13, 32-38, 
Bochart seems to be right in arguing 71-84; (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 
that they were living animals. The Gods of the Egyptians (London, 


is bove, pp. ; 1904), 4. 322-371, ii. 3+ sgg.3 
cena ve, pt 444 457, 459, Roeder, 5.V. ‘¢ Sonne und Sonnengott”, 


62 s9., 484, I, : 
: 2 is me ‘ Pe , in W. H. Roscher’s Ausfihriliches 
a Ses rash 7s Lextkon der griechischen und romischen 
$ Job xxxi, 26-28. Mythologie, iv. coll. 1155-1210; J. H. 


4 On this subject see A. Wiedemann, Breasted, Development of Religion and 
Religion of the Anctent Egyptians Thought in Ancient Egypt (London, 
(London, 1897), pp. 14-102, 106-124; 1912), pp. 8-17, 312-370. 


xr WOKSAIP OF (SUN BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 


vey 


efface the other deities, either by identifying them with 
himself or by abolishing them altogether. It is true that 
the evidence for the existence of Sun-worship does not begin 
to flow clearly until the time of the fourth and fifth dynasties, 
which seem to have lasted roughly from about 3100 B.C. to 
2800 B.c.' It was in this’ period that the five pyramids at 
Sakkarah (Memphis) were built, and from the inscriptions 
engraved in hieroglyphics on the walls, passages, and galleries 
of the pyramids we gather that the worship of the Sun formed 
then the groundwork of the national, or at least of the royal 
religion.” 

The ordinary name of the Sun-+god was Ra or Re, 
as the name is now usually transliterated. The name is 
simply the ordinary Egyptian word for the Sun,* so that 
the Egyptian Sun-god is as clearly a personification of the 
physical sun as the Vedic Surya, the Greek Helios, the 
Latin Sol,and the Babylonian Shamash. But the deity had 
many other titles, apparently because he was identified with 
various local gods, some of whom probably had originally 
no connexion with the Sun. In very early times the 
worship of the Sun was centred at Heliopolis, a vanished 
city which stood not far north of the site now occupied 


by the modern Cairo. 


1 The Cambridge Ancient History, 
i.2 662. Erman dates the fourth, fifth, 
and sixth dynasties somewhat later, 
namely, from 2800 to 2300 B.c. (Dée 
agyptische Religion, p. vii). 


2 T. E. Peet, in Zhe Cambridge 
Ancient History, i. 330. As to the 
engravings on the pyramids, the so- 
called Pyramid Texts, see Zhe Golden 
Bough, Part IV. Adonzs, Attis, Oszris, 
ii. 3 sgg., with the references. Accord- 
ing to one calculation, the Pyramid 
Texts were engraved during a period 
roughly of a hundred and fifty years 
from 2625 B.C. onward. 


3 A. Wiedemann, Religéon of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 14; A. Erman, 
Die agyptische Religion®, p. 10. It 
seems to be now generally held that the 
Egyptians, like the ancient Hebrews, 
did not write the vowels but only the 
consonants, so that in most cases there 


But even there 


it seems that 


is little or no guidance to the correct 
vocalization of the words. This natur- 
ally adds much to the difficulty of the 
language. See R. A. Stewart Macalister, 
in Zhe Cambridge Anctent History, i.* 
119. Hence Egyptologists vary greatly 
in their transliteration of Egyptian 
proper names. In the almost infinite 
variety of forms thus offered to his 
choice the uninitiated may perhaps be 
excused for selecting what seem to 
him the simplest, clearest, and most 
euphonious. On this ground I have 
preferred the spelling Ra to the spell- 
ing Re in the name'of the Sun-god 
as less liable to be misunderstood by 
English readers. The spelling Ra has 
the authority of Brugsch, Wiedemann, 
Maspero, Pierret (Le Livre des Morts, 
Paris, 1882), Moret, and Budge; the 
spelling Re is adopted by Erman, Ed. 
Meyer, Roeder, Breasted, Peet, and 
W. Max Miller (Zgyptian Mythology). 


The Sun- 
god Ra 
worshipped 
specially at 
Heliopolis. 


Ra identi- 
fied with 
Atum and 
Horus. 


Ra 
conceived 
as Khepera, 
the scarab 
beetle. 


Egyptian 
Sun- 
worship 
imposed on 
a basis of 
totemism. 


Attempts 
to reconcile 
the various 
names and 
attributes 
of the Sun- 
god. 


558 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARVAN PEOPLES Tein 


the Sun was not the original deity ; he was_ identified 
with an older local divinity called Atum or Tum, of whose 
origin we know nothing, but who may perhaps have been an 
ichneumon totem, since in later times he was occasionally 
represented in the form of an ichneumon.’ The Sun-god 
was also identified with Horus, the Falcon-god of Behdet 
(Edfu) in Upper Egypt, who later was worshipped throughout 
the length and breadth of the kingdom; and the identifica- 
tion was supported by conceiving the sun as a falcon flying 
across the sky. The comparison was very popular, and it 
is in the form of Horus on the Horizon (/or-achte) that the 
Sun-god was most commonly represented even in early times. 
Yet again the Sun-god was conceived of as Khepera or 
Khepri, the scarab beetle, which symbolizes coming-into- 
existence; and it has been conjectured that the idea may 
have been suggested by the resemblance which popular fancy 
traced between the sun’s disk crossing the sky and the bectle 
rolling his ball of dung before him.” 

“Tn all this’, observes Professor Peet, ‘“‘ we sec how strong 
was the tendency to harmonize sun-worship with the local 
totemic cults. The impression we receive is that sun- 
worship, and indeed the whole cosmic system of which it is 
typical, was secondary in Egypt, imposing itself on a sub-. 
stratum of totemism. In any case, whatever doubts there 
may be on this point, one thing is clear, namely that nine- 
tenths of the mythology of Ancient Egypt is cosmic in 
origin, and that it was grafted on to a totemic system with 
which it had originally no connexion. Thus to Horus, a 
falcon totem in origin, was attached the whole of the mass 
of myth which centred round the sun, while to Thoth, 
originally an ibis totem in the north-eastern Delta, accrued 
all the legend connected with the moon.” ® 

Sometimes an attempt was made to reconcile the different 
names and attributes of the Sun-god by supposing that they 
applied to him at different times of his course across the 


Wyle Eso Peete th i/ fe Cantorace 
Ancient History, i.2 330. 

2-T. E. Peet, in Zhe Cambridge 
Anctent History, i.* 330 sg.; A. Erman, 
Die dgyptische Religion®, p. 10; A. 
Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient 


Egyptians, p. 41. According to Wiede- 
mann, the name Khepera (Khepri) is 


derived from a verb kheper, ‘to 
become”. 
3 ‘I. E.. Peet, -in-7heY Cambridge 


Ancient History, i.* 331. 


XM WORSTIP COR SUN - BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS | (539 


sky. Thus in the Turin papyrus it is said that the Sun- 
god is Khepera in the morning, Ra at noon, and Atum at 
evening, but the distinction was never carried out consist- 
ently ; an ancient text, for example, represents the rising 
sun as Ra and the setting sun as Khepera.' 

Most commonly the Sun-god was supposed to sail The 
across the sky in a ship or boat built on the model of the eae 
ordinary boats which are used on the Nile. Amidships was cross the 
a cabin in which the god installed himself either sitting or XY /"* 
standing; fore and aft were his attendant deities, whose boats. 
business was to navigate the boat and to fight such foes 
as might oppose the progress of the Sun-god: the watch was 
relieved hourly. For, accustomed as they were to the use 
of waterways rather than of roadways in travelling, the 
Keyptians imagined that the movement of the heavenly 
bodies also consisted in a navigation, either on the waters 
which were thought to form the firmament, or else on the 
celestial Nile, which was supposed to run through a sky of 
metal. It was commonly understood that the Sun had two 
barks at his disposal, one called the mdd or mddet boat, in 
which he sailed in the morning, and the other the seh?z boat, 
in which he sailed in the afternoon. But, according to 
another theory, the number of the Sun’s barks was much 
larger, one being provided for every hour of the day.” Thus 
the different vehicles provided for the use of the Sun-god 
‘in different lands: furnish a good instance of the way in 
which men create their gods in their own likeness. Where 
men travelled in chariots drawn by horses, they naturally 
assumed that the deity did so too; and, on the other hand, 
where men habitually voyaged in boats, they took it for 
eranted that the divinity similarly navigated the azure ocean 
of heaven in a ship of some sort. If there ever had been 
a Venetian Sun-god, he would no doubt have traversed the 
sky in a gondola or, if he kept pace with the march of 
intellect, in a steam-launch. 


1 A. Erman, Diedeyptische Religion, 
pp. 10 sg.; A. Wiedemann, Religion 
of the Anctent Egyptians, p. 313 (Sir) 
K. A. Wallis Budge, 7he Gods of the 
Egyptians, i. 352. 

2 A. Wiedemann, Weligion of the 
Ancient Egypligns, pp. 23 sg., with 


figs. 3 and 4 on pp. 22, 23; A. Erman, 
Die dgyptische Religion*, p. 113 G. 
Maspero, /7//stotre ancrenne des peuples 
de lOrient classigue: les origines 
(Paris, 1895), p. 90; (Sir) E. A. Wallis 
Budge, Zhe Gods of the Egyptians, i, 
CELE 


Nocturnal 
passage of 
the Sun 
through 
the under- 
world. 


560 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES char. 


During the night the Sun was supposed to traverse the 
underworld (Dua?) or land of the dead from west to east, 
sailing in his boat on a river which runs through that dismal 
region. His subterranean voyage is described in great 
detail in two long texts which have come down to us, the 
Book of Am Duat, and the Book of the Gates.’ On the banks 
of the subterranean river dwelt all manner of spirits and 
demons, some of them in the form of monkeys, because it 
was their function to worship the setting sun ; the Egyptians 
may have noticed how monkeys chatter together at sunset 
and may have interpreted their chattering as adoration 
addressed to the descending luminary.” The underworld 
was thought to be divided into twelve compartments, called 
fields, cities, or dwellings: each of them was entered by a 
door; and the passage of the Sun through each of them 
occupied one hour. The dead shouted with joy when they 
beheld the bark of the Sun floating by in glory and illumining 
the infernal gloom by his radiance for one brief hour; for 
the departed were supposed to dwell in darkness which was 
dissipated by the passage of the Sun only for one hour out 
of the twenty-four. At all other times the blackness of 
darkness prevailed, only relieved, if relief it could be called, 
by the lurid light of fire-spitting serpents, or of the sea of 
fire in which the enemies of the Sun-god were consumed. 
Thus to sit in utter darkness was the lot of nearly all the 
dead, of the rich and great as well as of the poor and lowly; ~ 
kings themselves were not exempt from it. Few there were 
who remained for ever with the Sun and voyaged with him 
eternally ; these were not necessarily the great ones of the 
earth, nor yet the very good, but they were those who pos- 
sessed the most minute information about the next world 
and who were best versed in magic.® As for the dead in the 
nether world, they greet the Sun-god joyfully: “they lift up 
their arms and praise him, and tell him all their wishes... . 
Their eyes open again at the sight of him, and their heart 
exults when they see him. He hears the prayer of him who 
lies in the coffin; he dispels their sorrow and drives away 


1 A, Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 84 sg. 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 83-102. 3 A. Wiedemann, Aeligton of the 
2 A. Wiedemann, Xeligton of the Ancient Egyplians, pp. 94 59. 


xt WORSHIP OF SUN BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 561 


their sadness ; he puts breath into their nostrils”, and as the 
fresh breezes of the upper world never blow in the windless 
underworld, the dead seize the rope. at the bow of the Sun- 
god’s boat and draw the vessel along, plodding on the bank like 
men who tow a barge on the Nile when the wind is contrary.’ 

From the earliest times the Sun-god was regularly The Sun- 
conceived to be male; but in later times the Egyptians §¢°"* 
associated with him a goddess, who was created very simply 
by adding a feminine termination to the masculine name for 
the sun. Thus the Sun-goddess Rat or Rat Taui, that is, 
Mixatmor thes wo pisands®,came into’ being. «But no 
particular duties were assigned to her: her functions, so far 
as she had any, resembled those of Isis, and she was even 
represented bearing the cow horns of that goddess, but never 
with the head of a falcon. She was often called the Lady 
of Heliopolis, but she was also supposed to dwell in other 
places, as in the peninsula of Sinai.” 

The great seat of Sun-worship in the times of the ancient Heliopolis 
kingdom was the city which the Egyptians called An, the Hieliicsay 
Hebrews On, and the Greeks Heliopolis, that is, the City of seat of the 
the Sun. The Egyptians also named it Pa Ra, “the House paints 
of Ra’. It was a small town, which, while it exercised a 
great influence on the history of Egyptian religion, took no 
part in political revolutions ; it was a purely religious capital. 

The city has long vanished. It stood in the plain at a little 
distance from ‘the Nile, near the apex of the Delta. The site 
is now partly occupied by the village of Matarieh, about five 
miles to the north-east of Cairo. An obelisk standing erect 
in the middle of the fields, some mounds of ruins, some 
scattered stones, and two or three fragments of crumbling 
walls are all that remain to tell of its former grandeur. The 
obelisk bears the name of Usertesen or Senusret the First, 
a king of the Twelfth Dynasty (about 2200 to 2000 B.C.), 
who is better known by the name of Sesostris.2 The 

1 A, Erman, Die dgyptische Re- Maspero, Histotre ancienne des peuples 
ligion*, pp. I1 sq. de l’Orient classtgue: les origines 

2A. Wiedemann, Religion of the (Paris, 1895), pp. 135 sg.3 (Sir) 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 15 sg.; (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the 


E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the 
Egyptians, i. 287, 328. 

3 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 17 sg.3; G. 


VOL. I 


Egyptians, i, 328. As to the approxi- 
mate dates of the Twelfth dynasty, 
see Zhe Cambridge Ancient History, 
1.2 658 sg. 

220 


Zenith and 
decline of 
the temple 
of the 
Sun at 
Heliopolis. 


The spring 
of the Sun- 
god at 

Heliopolis. 


$62 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-AKVAN PEOPLES CHAFF, 


history of the city cannot be carried very far back. In texts 
of the Old Kingdom it is seldom named, and the foundation of 
the great temple of Ra, which was zealously adorned by later 
Pharaohs, dates only from the Twelfth Dynasty. The event 
is described in a document written on leather and now pre- 
served at Berlin. But the temple was not the first sanctuary 
built in the city ; for the same manuscript mentions that on 
the occasion of the new foundation the great house of Tum 
or Atum was enlarged. Under Rameses the Third (about 
1200 Bc.) the temple was at the height of its power ; 
nearly thirteen thousand persons are said to have been en- 
gaged in its service." But the decline of the city appears to 
have begun somewhat early. In the fifth century before 
our era Herodotus visited the city and conversed with the 
priests, who revealed to him some of their divine mysteries 
which he preferred not to divulge.” In Strabo’s time, about 
the beginning of our era, the city had fallen into utter decay 
and was deserted ; but the ancient temple of the Sun was 
still standing, together with the great houses once inhabited 
by the priests, and the sacred bull Mnevis was still fed and 
worshipped as a god in his stall, like. the other divine bull 
Apis at Memphis. But the old college of priests, who were 
thought to devote themselves to philosophy and astronomy 
and to practise a life of religious austerity, had ceased to 
exist ; nobody was to be seen about the deserted courts and 
quadrangles but the men whose business it was to offer 
sacrifice, and the guides who earned a livelihood by showing 
strangers over the temple.’ 

There was in Heliopolis a sacred spring of the Sun- 
god which has survived his temple. When King Piankhi 
of Ethiopia arrived at Heliopolis about 730 B.c., on his 
of triumphal march through Egypt, he washed his face, as he 
himself relates, in the pool of fresh water in which the Sun- 
god Ra was wont to lave his divine countenance. The Arabs 
still call it “the Spring of the Sun”; and here, as the 
ancient legend relates, the Mother of Christ washed her 
infant’s swaddling clothes when she reached Egypt in her 
flight from Herod. It is said that from the water falling on 


1 A. Wiedemann, Aeligion of the 2 Herodotus, ii. 3. 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 17 sq. 3 Strabo, xvii. I. 27-29. 


SMe OR SIL OPI SONIA YOANCIENT EGYPTIANS 563 


the ground there sprang up a balsam shrub, the like of 
which, according to the Arab historian Makrizi, is not to be 
found in the world. Even to this day the traveller is shown 
the sycamore, under which the Holy Family rested after 
their long and weary journey.' 

The Ethiopian king recorded his triumphal march visit of the 
through Egypt in a long inscription, which is said to be the can 
best example of a truly historical Egyptian inscription. — In Piankhi to 
it, after describing how he washed his face in the pool of the Ue ahs 
Sun, the monarch continues as follows: “He proceeded to Sun at _ 
the sandhill in Heliopolis, he brought an offering on the °°?" 
sand-dune in Heliopolis to Ka at his rising, a great offering 
of white oxen, milk, incense, balsam, and all sorts of sweet- 
smelling woods. Then he returned to the temple of Ra; 
the superintendent of the temple praised him highly: the 
speaker of prayers spoke the prayer for the averting of 
enemies from the king: the king performed the ceremony in 
the chamber of purification, the putting on of the bands, the 
_ purifying with incense and the water of libations, the handing 
of flowers for the Hat Benben of the god. He took the 
flowers, he ascended the steps to the great terrace, to see Ka 
in the Hat Benben, he the king himself. When the prince 
was alone, he undid the bolt, he opened the doors and saw 
his Father Ra in the Hat Benben, he saw the morning boat 
of Ra and the evening boat of Tum. He closed the doors, 
he put the seal on, and sealed it with the royal seal. He 
declared to the priests, ‘I have put on the seal, no other 
king shall goin thither’. They threw themselves down before 
His Majesty and said, ‘May Horus, the darling of Heliopolis, 
exist, and remain, and never pass away’. And he went and 
entered into the temple of Tum, and they brought the statue 
of Tum the Creator, the lord of Heliopolis, and King Osorkon 
came to see His Majesty.” ~ At this time Egypt was broken 
up into a number of petty kingdoms. The Osorkon here 
mentioned was king of Bubastis.° 


1 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the A, Wiedemann, Aeleyion of the Ancient 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 18, 21. Egyptians, pp.21-23; (Sir) E,A. Wallis 
2 A. Wiedemann, AeyAlische Ge- Budge, Zhe Gods of the Egyptians, i, 
schichte (Gotha, 1884), pp. 573 5g. 331 Sg. 
For a translation of the whole inscrip- 3 A, Wiedemann, Aeyflische Ce- 
tion, see 7d, pp, 566-575; compare = schichte, p. 564. 


564 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuap. 


The The title of Hat Benben, given to the temple of the Sun 
ne See at Heliopolis, means the “ House of the Obelisk”, for the 
Heliopolis, Benben was a small stone obelisk or rather perhaps pyramid, 
called Hat , 
Benben, Which was supposed to be an embodiment of the Sun-god Ra 
ec’ himself. It enjoyed a great reputation and is mentioned 
Obelisk". especially in religious and magical texts; it may even have 
been the model of the great obelisks which were amongst 
the most striking features of Egyptian Sun-worship.' The 
creat obelisks which stood at the entrances of temples were 
dedicated to the Sun, and so were the little votive obelisks 
which were placed in tombs, particularly during the period of 
the Old Kingdom. Under the New Kingdom these small 
Obelisks were replaced by small pyramids, which are not to 
be regarded as modelled on the huge sepulchral pyramids of 
the Old Kingdom; rather they represent the obelisks, the 
pointed tops of enich are similarly shaped.” 
The The kings of the Fifth Dynasty were devoted to the 
noe i worship of the Sun-god Ra; indeed, the first king of the 
different in dynasty is said to have been a high priest of that deity, and 


nese from him his successors on the throne appear to have 

temples. inherited their partiality for the solar religion. Almost 
every one of them built a new sanctuary for the Sun-god 
near his residence, and the highest nobility served as priests 
in it. These sanctuaries, which bore titles such as “ Favourite 
Seat of Ra”, were built on quite a different plan from the 
usual Egyptian temple. In the ordinary temple the Holy 
of Holies, approached through a pillared hall from an open 
cloistered court, was a closed chamber in which deep dark- 
ness reigned ; for it had no windows, and light penetrated 
to it only through the door. There in the religious gloom 
might be faintly discerned the image of the god; it was 
usually a wooden idol not more than eighteen inches high, 
for it had to be small and light that it might be carried in 
the processions which figured largely in the worship. On 
the other hand, in the temples of the Sun-god built by kings 
of the Fifth Dynasty the deity was represented in the Holy 

1 A, Wiedemann, Religion of the Lexthon der grtechischen und rimischen 

Anctent Egyptians, p. 24; A. Erman, A/ythologie, iv. 1162. 
Die agyptische Religion®, pp. 33, 553 
Roeder, s.v, ‘Sonne und Sonnengott”’, 2 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the 
in W. H. Roscher’s Ausfiihrliches Ancient Egyptians, p. 16. 


Reena er SUN EY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 565 


of Holies by a great stone obelisk, resting on a massive 
truncated pyramid as a foundation and completely open to 
the sky and the sunlight. The temples of this peculiar type 
were perhaps modelled on the great temple of the Sun-god 
at Heliopolis, which has disappeared ana of which we have 
no description. One of these Sun-temples stood at Abu 
Gurab; from its remains, many of which are now in the 
museum at Berlin, it is possible to restore conjecturally the 
general plan of the temple.’ 

Another temple of the Sun-god, on the same plan, has 
been excavated at Abusir (Busiris) in the Delta. Outside 
of the temple, on the southern face of it, was discovered 
the image of a boat, about a hundred feet Jong, built 
of bricks. It was no doubt provided for the convenience 
of the Sun-god to enable him to accomplish his daily voyage 
across the sky; and as the temple stands to the west of 
the Nile we may suppose that the boat was the one which 
the deity used in the afternoon and evening to transport 
him to his setting in the west. Hence it would appear that 
the temple at Abusir (Busiris) was dedicated specially to the 
Setting Sun.” The unusual materials employed in the 
construction of the vessel would be no impediment to its 
use by the deity, who would find, or make, bricks quite as 
buoyant as timber. 


Temple of 
the Sun- 
god at 
Busiris. 


Another seat of Sun-worship was Behdet, the modern Temple of 


Edfu, in Upper, Egypt. The temple of the Sun-god 


the Sun- 
god at 


there, restored in the Greek period on the ancient model, is Behdet 


still in perfect preservation. It is constructed on the ordi- 
nary plan with an inner sanctuary or Holy of Holies of the 
usual type.® 


1 A. Erman, Die dgyptische Religion, 
pp. 52-56; A. Wiedemann, Ae/iston 
of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 16 sg. 
As to the general plan of an ordinary 
Egyptian temple, see also A. Erman, 
Aegyplten und aegyptisches Leben im 
Altertum, pp. 380 sg. The Holy of 
Holies was divided into three chapels, 
side by side. The image of the god 
stood in the central chapel, while the 
images of his wife and son usually 
stood in the side chapels, in ‘accord- 
ance with the common distribution of 


Egyptian deities into triads or trinities, 
each consisting of a Father, a Mother, 
anda Son. See A. Wiedemann, Azczeni 
Eeyptian Religion, pp. 103 sg. As to 
the religious gloom characteristic of 
the Holy of Holies in, ordinary Egyp- 
tian temples, compare G. Maspero, 
L’ Archéologie égyptienne, p. 71. 

2G. Maspero, Causeries d’Egypte 
(Paris, N.D., preface dated 1907), pp. 
327-333: 

3 A. Erman, Die adgyptische Religion, 
pp. 13, 51; G. Maspero, L’ Archéologie 


(Edfu). 


The Sun- 
god Ra 
represented 
as a man 
with the 
head of a 
falcon or 
hawk. 


The 
faleon-god 
perhaps 
originally 
a falcon- 
totem, 


566. WORSHIP OF SON BY NON-ARKRYAN PLOTLES <iaG 


The Sun-god ka was almost invariably represented as a 
man with the head of a falcon or hawk, holding in one hand 
the kingly sceptre, and in the other hand the symbol of 
life, which was a cross with a loop at the top to serve 
as a handle.’ On his head he wears the solar disk with the 
uraeus coiled about it, that serpent being symbolic of power 
over life and death. It is a characteristic sign of Egyptian 
solar deities to have the head of a hawk or falcon: many of 
them were supposed to be incarnate in the bird ; wherever 
a god is so represented, his solar nature may be confidently 
assumed. In times when an attempt was made to convert 
the whole Egyptian religion into Sun-worship, the figure of 
the sparrow-hawk proper was equivalent to the sign for 
ncicr, “ god”, and similarly the figure of the uracus serpent 
was equivalent to the sign for mefteret, “ goddess”. We have 
no ancient information as to how the hawk or falcon came 
to be associated with the sun; dak, which is the Egyptian 
name of the bird, has no philological connexion with the 
heavenly body.” It is a plausible conjecture, though it may 
be nothing more, that “the falcon-god Horus, originally, it 
would seem, the local totem-god of Behdet in the Delta, 
became in pre-dynastic times the national god of Lower 
Egypt, simply because the falcon tribe acquired an ascendancy 
over the other tribes of the Delta. Later still, on the unifica- 
tion of Upper and Lower Egypt, he became the national 
god of the united country, and it was doubtless then that he 
was given a new home at Behdet of Upper Egypt, the 
modern Edfu”.? 

In Egyptian mythology it is necessary to distinguish 


éopplienne, p. 73. Compare Zhe Cam- modern authorities speak of the Sun- 


bridge Anctent History, i 261, 329; 
Roeder, s.v. ‘*Sonne und Sonnengott”, 
in W. H. Roscher’s Ausfihrliches 
Lextkon der griechischen und romischen 
Alythologie, wv. 1159. 

1 The name of the symbol 2 was 
ankh ; by modern writers it is often 
referred to as the crax ansata, See 
A. Wiedemann, AXeligion of the Anctent 
Egyptians, pp. 288 sg., who denies 
that the symbol has anything to do 
with a cross, 

2 A. Wiedemann, Le/rgion of the 
Anctent Egyptians, pp. 25 sg. Some 


bird as a hawk, others call it a falcon. 
The two words are not synonymous. 
See Alfred Newton, Dectionary of 
Birds (London, 1893-1896), s.vz, 
‘Falcon’? and’ S“Hawk’, pine aasy 
411, Of the two, ‘‘ falcon” is the 
more precise and definite, while hawk 
is ‘*a word of indefinite meaning, being 
often used to signify all diurnal Birds 
of Prey, which are neither vultures nor 
eagles” (Newton, of, ct/, p. 411). 


3-T: EE. Peet; in” The ‘Cambridge 
Ancient History, i.2 329. 


Bie Ono ie OL oN Y ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 567 


Horus the Sun-god from Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis. Horus the 
Originally these two deities, both named Horus, appear to a aan 
have had nothing in common, but im later times an attempt eat a 
was made to blend them into one, and to liken the war which tis. _ 
Horus the Sun-god waged on the powers of darkness to the 

long combat in which Horus, the son of Osiris, engaged 

with Set the murderer of his divine father. Generally 
speaking, the Sun-god Horus can be distinguished from his 
namesake, the son of Osiris, by the possession of certain 

titles which varied with the provinces or cities in which he 

was worshipped. In course of time each of the different 

forms of the Sun-god Horus, discriminated from the rest by Different 
a distinctive epithet, came to be regarded as an independent \7"°.°) . 
divinity, and we often find several such duplicate deities Sun-god. 
worshipped contemporaneously, as if they had no relation 

~to each other, in the later periods of Egyptian history." 
Among these various forms of Horus the Sun-god the 
following may be particularly noted. 

Her-ur, that is, “ Horus the Elder”, whom the Greeks Horus the 
called Arueris and identified with their Apollo” His ee 
mother was the goddess Hathor: he was born at Apollino- 
polis Parva, and he was especially worshipped at Latopolis, 
near Memphis. A great temple was also dedicated to him 
at Ombos in Upper Egypt. He was represented as a man 
with a hawk’s head or simply as a hawk.? But in some 
places he was worshipped in the form of a lion. The 
inscriptions on the walls of the temple at Ombos prove 
that he was called the Lord of the South, the Lord of Nubti 
(Ombos), and that he was identified with Shu, the son of Ra, 
and with several other gods who were regarded as gods of 
light and of the rising Sun in various of his aspects., 

Horus the Elder was distinguished from Horus the 
Younger or Horus the Child, Her-pe-khred, whom the Horus the 
Greeks called Harpocrates. This Horus the Younger was (uae 
the son of Osiris and Isis; but he could not escape the crates). 
fate of the Egyptian gods, who were regularly attracted to 

1 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 27 sg.3 (Sir) 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 27. E. A, Wallis Budge, 7he Gods of the 
Egyptians, i. 467 sq. 

4 (Sir) FE. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe 
3A Wiedemann, Religion of the Gods of the Egyptians, i, 468. 


2 Plutarch, /s¢s and Osirs, 12. 


Horus of 
the Two 
Eyes. 


The Blind 
Horus, 


Horus on 
the Two 
Horizons 
(Har- 
machis). 


The great 
Sphinx. 


568 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES Cnar, 


the sun like moths to the flame of a candle, and in after 
times he was identified with the young Sun just risen above 
the horizon.’ | 

Her-mer-ti, “ Horus of the Two Eyes”, that is, of 
the Sun and Moon. He was called Lord of Shedennu, 
a city of Lower Egypt; in art he was represented as 
a man with a hawk’s head and above it the solar disk 
encircled by the uraeus serpent, and in his hand he bore 
a certain symbol (a#¢chat2) in which two eyes appear side by 
side.” 

Her-khent-an-ma, “ Horus, Lord of Not Seeing”, a god 
of Latapolis who was supposed to be blind and to symbolize 
an eclipse of the sun. The shrew-mouse was sacred to the 
Blind Horus because it was thought to be blind, and also 
because darkness is older than light. The little creature 
was said to be born of ordinary mice in the fifth generation 
at new moon, and its liver was supposed to diminish in size 
during a lunar eclipse. 

Her-em-khu-ti, the Harmachis of the Greeks, “ Horus on 
the Two Horizons.”, that is, the eastern and the western 
horizon, so that the name signifies Horus at his rising and 
at his setting. Sometimes he was designated simply Her- 
em-khu, “Horus on the Horizon”, and then represented 
especially the god of the rising sun. He was easily and 
commonly identified with the ordinary Sun-god Ra in his 
daily course across the sky. In that capacity he was 
styled “the Great God, the Lord of heaven, Ra Harmachis”. 
He appears in this form as god of Heliopolis, where he was 
associated with a wife named If-s-das. He played a 
prominent part also in the city of Tanis, in the far east of 
the Delta, on the Asiatic frontier. But the greatest and 
most famous monument dedicated to his worship is the huge 
Sphinx, near the pyramids of Gizeh, which was his type 
and symbol. According to the inscriptions, this colossal 


1 A, Wiedemann, Aeligion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 223 sg.; (Sir) 
E, A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the 
Egyptians, i. 468 sg. The latter writer 
transliterates the Egyptian name of 
the god as Heru-p-khart. 

2 A, Wiedemann, Religion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 28; (Sir) E. A. 


Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the Egyp- 
tians, 1, 469 sg. 


3 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 28. The 
Egyptian notions about the shrew- 
mouse are mentioned by Plutarch, 
Quaest, Conviv, iv. 5. 2. 


Sire itr Ono fad OF SUNIBY ANCIENT (EGYPTIANS  .569 


figure was in existence in the days of King Khephren 
(Khafra), who built the second pyramid at Gizeh.’ But 
curiously enough no mention of this monstrous monument 
occurs in the inscriptions until the reign of Thothmes or 
Thutmose the Fourth (about 1420-1411 B.C.). An inscrip- 
tion engraved on a tablet near the Sphinx records how in his 
youth, long before his father’s death, Thothmes was one day 
hunting and in the ardour of the chase was carried out 
into the desert near the pyramids of Gizeh. There, overcome 
with weariness and the noonday heat he lay down to rest in 
the shadow of the great Sphinx. He fell asleep, and as he 
slept he dreamed a dream. It seemed to him’ that the Sun- 
god, with whom in those days the Sphinx was identified, 
appeared to him and besought him to clear away the desert 
_sand which had drifted against his image and had partially 
buried it. As a reward for this pious labour the Sun-god 
promised him the kingdom. The prince vowed to do as the 
great god desired, and no sooner did he come to the throne 
_ than he hastened to perform his vow. He cleared the gigantic 
figure of the Sphinx from the drifted sand, and he recorded 
the whole story on a tablet in the neighbourhood. A later 
version of the tale, made by the priests of the palace, was 
engraved on a huge granite architrave taken from the 
neighbouring temple and set up against the breast of 
the Sphinx between its fore-legs, where it stands to this 
day.” | 


of the morning sun, who manifested himself in the golden 
glory of the dawn. He was thus the counterpart of the 
Golden Hathor, the goddess of the western sky, who 
received the dying sun in the sunset glow and was hence 
supposed to receive the dead on their departure from the 
upper world. In this capacity the Golden Hathor was 
usually represented emerging from the Mountain of the 
West. From of old the Pharaohs, who always sought to 
pose as the Sun on earth, greatly affected the title of “the 
Golden Horus”, and their public appearances were commonly 


1 A, Wiedemann, Religion of the ot fied be Breasted, in Zhe Cambridge 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 28 sg.; (Sir) Ancient History, ii. 913 (Sir) E. A. 
E, A, Wallis Budge, 7he Gods of the Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the Egyp- 
Egyptians, i. 470-472. tians, 1. 472. 


The history 
of its 
dedication : 
the dream 
of 
‘Vhothmes. 


Her-nub, “the Golden Horus”, was primarily the god The Golden 


Horus, 


The Sun- 
god Tum 


or Atum oc 
Heliopolis. 


Pa Tum 
(Pithom), 
‘‘the 
House of 
unis 


The Sun- 
god Ra 
identified 
with Amon 
the local 
god of 
‘Thebes. 


570 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES CitaP, 


described as the breaking forth of light by the use of a word 
which also signified the sunrise.’ 
The Sun-god Tum or Atum was originally the local god 


,of Heliopolis, and in the dynastic period at all events he 


was held to be a form of the great Sun-god Ra and to 
personify the setting sun in contradistinction to Khepera, 
the morning sun. He was adored at Heliopolis as Lord 
of the World and the great Creator. In the Book of 
the Dead he is called “ Creator of heaven, maker of beings, 
procreator of all that is; Ife who gave birth to the gods ; 
self-created ; Lord of Life; He who grants new strength to 
the gods”. His worship was intimately associated with the 
Egyptian doctrine of immortality. But in regard to this life 
also he was a beneficent deity: from before him went forth 
the north wind that brought cool airs to the dry and dusty 
land during the hot Egyptian summer, and to breathe its 
sweet breath was reckoned one of the passionate desires of 
the dead. Another centre of the worship of Tum was 
Pa Tum, “the House of Tum”, the Pithom of the Old 
Testament, the ruins of which were discovered by the 
eminent Swiss Egyptologist, M. Edouard Naville, in 1883, 
at Tell el Maskhtitah, east of the Delta. In the papyri and 
the monuments Tum is usually represented’ as a man 
wearing the crowns of Upper: and Lower Egypt; in his 
right hand he holds the emblem of life, and in his left hand 
the sceptre. In the boat of Ra he is depicted in human 
form even when Ra is symbolized by a disk which is being 
rolled along by a beetle, and when the Sun-god Khepera 
is portrayed by a beetle, Originally Tum had no divine 
consort, but in one of the later texts, from Denderah, there 
is mention of a goddess Tumt, the feminine form of Tum; the 
text says that she was worshipped at Bubastis.” 

But the identification which carried with it the most 
far-reaching consequences for Egyptian religion was that 
of the Sun-god Ra with Amon (Ammon), the local god 
of Thebes in Upper Egypt. In the most-ancient times of 
Egyptian history Thebes was an obscure provincial town, so 


1 A. Wiedemann, Heltgion of the E,. A, Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 29 sq. Egyptians, i. 349 sgg., who trans- 

2 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the  literates the god’s name as Tem, or 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 31 sg.3 (Sir) Temu, or Aten, 


MMMM HOM Oey T re OV, Ye IVCLA ING 2G YP TIANS 571 


insignificant that its god Amon is hardly mentioned in the 
oldest religious texts. It was not until the time of the 
Middle Kingdom, when two Theban families came to the 
throne, that something was done for the glory of the local 
cod, and with him his consort Mut began to emerge from 
her obscurity. But the great day for the gods of Thebes 
dawned with the beginning of the New Kingdom (about 
1600 B.c.). During the confusion which followed the close 
of the twelfth dynasty and continued under the rule of the 
foreign conquerors, the Hyksos, Thebes was the capital of 
a princely house, which, by a brilliant stroke of policy, 
identified its local god Amon with the great Sun-god Ka, 
and so worshipped the composite deity under the name of 
Amon-Ra. When this royal family succeeded in expelling 
the Hyksos and bringing the whole of Egypt under their 
sway, it was inevitable that Amon-Ra, “the King of the 
Gods”, should become the official god of the whole kingdom. 
Under the great and warlike kings of the Eighteenth 
‘Dynasty the dominion of Egypt stretched from the 
Euphrates to the Sudan, and with it the fame of Amon-Ka, 
the patron god of the conquerors, spread far and _ wide. 
From the riches, which in the form of tribute, flowed into 
their treasury the Pharaohs of that and the following 
dynasties testified their gratitude for their victories by 
rearing in honour of Amon-Ra at Thebes (Karnak) the The 
gigantic temples which; enlarged by the labours and the Seed 
wealth of successive generations, remain to this day the at Thebes 
wonder Of the world, the most colossal shrines which the (S*™*): 
hands of men have ever dedicated on earth to the glory of 
God. And in other cities also the kings caused new temples 
to be erected to the Sun-god, that men everywhere might 
pay their devotion to his supreme majesty. For a thousand 
years this hybrid deity stood at the head of the Egyptian 
pantheon.’ 

In truth, he was a curious hybrid, compounded out of Amon of 
the sun and a ram, since Amon, the local god of Thebes, cn 


Pe. : obs ace : ; a ram-god 
1 A.Erman, Dre dgyplische Religion®, Religion of the Anctent Egyptians, pp. 6 


Pps 71-7330. aMeyer,’s.z7, ‘“SAmmon”, LOFNG7. oily AL Wallis Badve, 
in’ W. H. Roscher’s Ausfiihrliches The Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 4 sq., 
Lexikon der griechischen und romischen 22 sy. 


Mythologie, i,283-285; A. Wiedemann, 


Annual 
sacrifice of 
a ram at 
Thebes and 
identifica- 
iion of the 
god with 
the ram, 


WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-AKYAN PHOPLES ‘Citar, 


appears to have been of old a ram and nothing else. For 
the sheep was sacred and worshipped at Thebes, as cats, 
crocodiles, lions, wolves, monkeys, and the rest of the divine 
menagerie were sacred and worshipped in other parts of 
Egypt; indeed, whoever adored the Theban god in any part 
of the kingdom was bound to spare the life of the sheep as 
a holy animal.' The god himself was represented in the 
form of a ram or of a man with a ram’s head, or of a man 
with the horns of a ram, wearing the solar disk. The 
avenues leading to his temples at Thebes were flanked on 
either side by colossal figures of rams with coiled or curved 
horns, that being the species of the animal which was 
especially sacred to the god, or rather in which he was 
supposed to be incarnate.” But though the people of 
Thebes did not usually sacrifice rams, deeming them sacred, 
nevertheless on one day of the year, at the god’s festival, 
they killed a ram, skinned it, and clothed the image of the 
god in the skin of the slaughtered beast. Thereupon all the 
people in the temple lamented for the ram, beating their 
breasts, after which they buried the carcase in a sacred 
coffin.® In this custom the god seems clearly to be 
identifed with the ram by being clothed in the animal’s 
skin, and the divinity of the ram is in like manner plainly 
indicated by the lamentations for his death and by the 
burial of his dead body in a sacred coffin. The intention of 
the rite probably was to renew the strength of the god once 
a year by communicating to his image, and thereby to 
himself, the vigour of a live ram, the creature in which his 
divine spirit was believed to be incarnate.* The supposed 
necessity of thus annually renewing the strength of the god 
will be manifest when we remember that in the opinion of 
the Egyptians the gods in general and the Sun-god in 
particular were subject to the weakness and decrepitude 
of old age. 


572 


1 Herodotus, ii. 42; Strabo, xvii. 1. 
40; Clement of Alexandria, Profreft. 
11.30, Bo e4,gece o1ter, 

2 E. Meyer, s.v. ‘‘Ammon”, inW.H, 
Roscher’s Ausfithrliches Lexikon der 


oriechischen und rimischen Mythologie, 


i, 284; A. Wiedemann, Xelzgion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 118-120; 


wd., LHerodots Zweites Buch (Leipzig, 
1890), p, :202 ;2 A. Bis Cooker 
1. 347. 

3 Herodotus, ii. 42. 

4 Compare 7he Golden Bough, Part V. 
Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.. 
172 5g. 


WORSHIP OF SUN BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 


XII 573 


To this notion we shall return presently. Meantime The 
it deserves to be noticed that Thebes was not the only 280%, 
place where the Sun-god was identified with a deity who with 
would seem originally to have been neither more nor less iets 
than a ram. The god Chnum or Chnubis, as the Greeks the igre 
called him, who was worshipped in Elephantine, the city siete 
situated at the First Cataract in Upper Egypt, was 
represented on the oldest monuments as a man with a 
ram’s head, the horns projecting horizontally from the 
temples and not curved downwards, like the horns of the 
ram Amon. The two rams, thus distinguished from each 
other, clearly belonged to different species.’ According to 
Brugsch, the god was represented at his sanctuaries by a 
living ram in which the soul of the deity was believed to 
reside ; the animal was chosen from the flock on purpose 
to serve as the god’s incarnation.?2 But in course of 
time the ram of Chnum, like that of Amon, was identified 
with the Sun-god Raj; hence at Abaton, near Philae, a 
little south of Elephantine, the sacred ram of Chnum was 
called the “living soul of Ra”.® Hence, too, in Egyptian 
inscriptions from the sixteenth century B.C. onwards his 
name was coupled with that of Ra in the compound of 
Chnum-Ra to indicate the divine partnership, or rather 
identity, of the two gods; and the composite nature of 
the hybrid deity was graphically indicated by portraying 
him as a man with a ram’s head surmounted by the 


1H. Brugsch, Religion und Mytho- which was found in one of the 


lozie der alten Aegypter (Leipzig, 1885), 
pp. 290 sgg.; A. Wiedemann, Hevodots 
Zweites Buch (Leipzig, 1890), pp.1975¢.; 
?d., Religion of the Anctent Egyptians, 
pp. 128 sg.; Drexler, s.v. ‘*Knuphis”, 
in W. H. Roscher’s <Azusfihrliches 
Lexthkon der griechischen und romtschen 
Mythologie, ii, 1250 sgg.; Sethe, s.v. 
**Chnubis ”, in Pauly-Wissowa, ea/- 
Encyclopadie der classischen Altertums- 
wissenschaft, iii, 2349-23523; (Sir) 
E. A. Wallis Budge, 7he Gods of the 
Egyptians, ii. 49 sgg.3 A. B. Cook, 
Zeus, i. 346 sg. The last two of 
these writers call the god Khnemu-. 
The Greek form of the name 
(XvodPis) occurs in a Greek inscription 
of Ptolemy VIII. (146-116 B.c.), 


islands of the Cataracts. See W. 
Dittenberger, Orientis Graect Inscrip- 
LEUi es melee ze at IN Oe LUO, VO) ler 1, 
pp. 207 sg. Strabo (xvii. 1, 48) calls 
the god Knuphis (Kvofg¢is), The name 
is given as Kneph by Plutarch (/s7s 
and Osiris, 21) and Eusebius (Praefar. 
Evangel, iii, 11, 28), Eusebius (0. ez¢. 
iii, 12, 1) describes the god’s image at 
Elephantine as that of a man seated, 
of a blue colour, with the head af a 


ram surmounted by a disk. The 
description is borne out by the 
monuments, 


2-H. Brugsch, Religion und Alytho- 
logte der alten Aegypter, p. 291. 

3 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 128. 


The 
divine ram 


perhaps a 
totem. 


Hynin to 
Amon-Ra, 
the Sun- 
god. 


574. WORSHIP OF .SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES Cine 


solar disk. 
of Egypt.’ 

If, as there is some ground for thinking, the religion 
of the primitive Egyptians was saturated with totemism, 
we can easily understand why a ram should have been 
worshipped as a sacred animal at Thebes in Lower Egypt 
and at Elephantine in Upper Egypt; in both places the 
ram may originally have been the totem of the ruling clan. 

The power and glory of Amon-Ka are celebrated in 
hymns which attempt to make up by fulsome flattery for 
their lack of poetical inspiration. For example, in a long 
hymn of the Twentieth Dynasty, which is now preserved in 
the museum of Gizeh, the god is addressed as follows : 


His worship prevailed especially in the south 


** Praise to Amon-Ra/ 
To the bull in Heltopolts, to the chief of all the gods, 
To the beautiful and beloved god, 
Who giveth life by all manner of war Tee by 
All manner of fair cattle. 
flail to Thee, Amon-Ra, lord of the throne of the two lands, 
Dwelling in Thebes, 
Husband of his Mother, dwelling in his ficlds, 
Wide-ranging, dwelling in the Land of the South, 
Lord of the Libyans, ruler of Arabia (Pint), 
Prince of heaven, heir of earth, 
The lord who giveth duration to things, duration to all things.” 


In the same hymn he is called “the chief of all the 
gods, maker of men, former of the flocks, lord of the things 
which are” 

“ The gods give praise unto him, 
Maker of things below and things above, he itlumines 


The two lands, he traverseth the upper heaven in peace ; 
King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” 4 


Still in the same hymn he is described as 


“* Hlearing the prayer of him who ts in affliction, 
Kindly of heart towards him who calleth upon him. 
He delivereth the timid from him who 7s of a froward heart; 


1 Sethe, s.v., * Chnubis.”, in Pauly- 
Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie der classt- 
schen Altertumswissenschaft, ili. 2351; 
H.Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der 
alten Aegypler, pp. 242 597., 294, 296; 
A. Erman, Deze dgyptische Religion ?, 
pp. 48, 71; (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 


The Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 52. 

2T. E. Peet, in Zhe Cambridge 
Ancient History, i122 246, 328 sg. 

3 A. Wiedemann, Aeligion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 111. 

4 A, Wiedemann, Religion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 112. 


RIM Osueis HOLS UWE BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, 575 
Fle udgeth the cause of the poor, between the poor and the mighty, 
fle ts the lord of understanding, plenty ts on his lips. 

fle cometh as the Nile to those who love him. 

Lord of sweetness, a great one of love.” } 


In the same hymn the god’s creative power is extolled 
as follows : 


“ Only form, who dtdst make all that ts, one and only one, maker 
of all that have being ! 
Mankind went forth from his two eyes, 
The gods were created on his lips. 
fle maketh the herbage which maketh the cattle to live, 
The frutt trees for men; 
fe maketh to live the fishes in the river, 
The fowls beneath the sky. 
He gtueth breath to that whitch ts in the egg; 
Fle maketh the grasshoppers to live, 
fle maketh the birds to live, 
The creeping things and the flying, as well as what belongeth 
to them. 
Fle maketh provtiston for the mice tn thetr holes ; 
Fle maketh to live the birds in every tree, 
Hatl to thee, maker of all these! .. . 
Fail to thee from all flocks, 
Acclamations to thee from every land, 
To the herght of heaven, to the width of earth, 
To the depth of the sea. 
The gods bow before thy majesty ; 
They exalt the spirits of him who formed them, 
They rejoice at the comings of him who begat them ; 
They say unto thee: ‘ Approach in peace, 
Father of the fathers of all the gods, 
Thou who upholdest the heaven and puttest down the earth’, ... 
King ts he when alone even as in the midst of the gods ; 
Many are his names, none knoweth thetr number; he riseth tn the 
horizon of the east, he setteth in the horizon of the west ; 
Fle overthroweth his enemtes. . . . 
Fflatl to thee, Amon-Ra, lord of the throne of the two lands / 
Whose city loveth his rising.” 2 


Amon-Ka is generally represented in human form with poeakastie 
° 10nS O 
a human head; he holds either the sceptre alone or the Amon-Ra 


sceptre in the left hand and the symbol of life (awkh) in the in @t 
right, and he is crowned with the solar disk and two long 
feathers, which rise either from a stiff cap or else from a pair 

1 A. Wiedemann, Aeligion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp.115-118, Com- 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 114. pare A. Erman, Die dgyplische Religion®, 


pp. 73 5g.3 (Sir) E. A, Wallis Budge, 
2 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the The Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 5 599. 


Mut, the 
wife of 
Amon-Ra. 


576 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuapr. 


of ram’s horns. The sections of the plumes are coloured 
alternately red and green or red and blue. His body is 
sometimes coloured blue, probably because that was the 
colour of the sky in which he ruled as Sun-goed. It is to be 
noted that the horns which he wears are those of Chnum 
rather than of Amon, since they stand out horizontally from 
the head instead of curling round the ears. Sometimes he 
is given the head of a hawk surmounted by the solar disk 
with the uraeus serpent coiled round it. Again, in many 
scenes he is portrayed with the head of a ram and above it 
the solar disk, plumes, and uraeus serpent.’ 

The principal wife of Amon-Ra, the king of the Gods, 
in the New Empire was Mut, whose name means “ Mother ”. 
In one, at least, of her aspects she appears to have been 
conceived as the great World-mother, who brought forth 
whatever exists. Her relation to the Sun-god seems to have 
beer. somewhat uncertain. In a late text she is described 
as “the Mother of the Sun, in whom he rises”; but in the 
city of Samhud she was held to be the daughter of Ra. In 
pictures the goddess is usually represented as a woman 
wearing on her head the united crowns of the South and 
the North, and holding in her hands the papyrus sceptre and 
the symbol of life. Elsewhere we see her in female form, 
standing upright with her arms stretched out at full length 
and with large wings attached to them. The chief centre of 
her worship was Asher, a place south of Karnak (Thebes). 
Here King Amenophis the Third built a temple to her, with 
a sacred lake attached to it. Votive statues representing the 
goddess with the head of a lioness, both standing and seated, 
were dedicated there by the founder and. by King Sheshonk 
the First (the Shishak of the Bible) in such numbers that even 
in ancient times many were transferred to other Egyptian 
sanctuaries, and in modern times almost.every great museum 
of the world possesses one or more of them. Such a 
representation appears to imply a warlike character in 
the goddess.’ 

1 A, Wiedemann, Aeligion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 122 59.3 A. 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 118 sg.; (Sir) Erman, Die dgyptische Religion”, p.16; 
E. A. Wallis Budge, Zhe Gods of the (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 7he Gods of 


Egyptians, ii, 16 sq. the Egyptians, ii, 28. 
2 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the 


Pili Gnwittd OL SUL OER ANG/JEINICLGYRILTANS 577 


Fortified by his association with the Sun-god Ka and by Rise of the 
the support of the reigning dynasty, the once obscure and Prsthood 
insignificant deity Amon of Thebes rose in the course of Raat _ 
about a century to the rank of “the King of the Gods” of Mega 
Egypt. Under the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties the wealth 
wealth of the Theban priests must have been enormous, and opm 
the religious and social influence which they wielded was such conquest. 
as to render them formidable rivals of the royal house. The 
golden age of the Theban temples and priesthood began with 
the Asiatic expeditions of the eighteenth dynasty. Indeed, 
there is some ground for suspecting that the great Egyptian 
raids, both to the north in Syria and to the south in Nubia, 
were dictated as much by the desire of enriching the temples 
and the priests as by the ambition of extending the glory 
and prestige of the empire. The slavish homage which the 
Thothmes (Thutmose) kings and the Ramessids paid to 
Amon-Ra, and the lavish gifts which they showered on his 
sanctuaries, suggest that behind the stately figureheads of 
the kings it was the pious, but not altogether unworldly, 
ecclesiastics who pulled the real strings of war and peace.’ 

Of the prodigal liberality with which the kings heaped wealth 
on the religious establishments some of them have bequeathed 
to us exact records. Thus King Seti the First (about 
1320 B.C.) tells us that “he gave to his Father Amon-Ra, the 
silver, gold, lapis lazuli, malachite, and all the precious stones 
which he had got as booty in the wretched land of Syria”. 
The sculptures which accompany and illustrate this inscrip- 
tion show that among the booty were the splendid vessels, 
fashioned of precious metals in fantastic forms, which were in 
that age the much-admired handiwork of Syrian goldsmiths.’ 

But all other records of pious munificence are cast into the Munificent 
shade by the roll known as the great Harris papyrus, some 72". 
hundred and thirty-three feet long, in which are set forth Rameses 
the benefactions which King Rameses the Third (about 1200 ee ns 
B.C.) conferred on Egyptian sanctuaries during his long reign Amon-Ra 

; ; : at Thebes, 
of thirty-one years. They include one hundred and sixty- 


nine cities, of which nine were in Syria and Ethiopia; more 


1 (Sir) E, A. Wallis Budge, Zhe tm Altertum, pp. 403 sgq@. 
Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 11 sg.3 A. 2 A.Erman, degyptenundaegyptisches 
Erman, degypten und aegyptisches Leben Leben tm Altertum, p. 404. 


‘VOL. I al” 


578 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuar. 


than a hundred thousand slaves ; nearly half a million head 
of cattle; more than five hundred vineyards and gardens ; 
more than two thousand seven hundred images of gods ; and 
many thousand vessels of gold, silver, and bronze; not to 
mention many millions of less precious offerings. Of the 
royal bounty, Amon-Ra at Thebes appears to have appro- 
priated the lion’s share, for we know that in the reign of this 
generous benefactor the god’s temple in that city owned more 
than eighty thousand slaves, more than four hundred thousand 
head of cattle, hundreds of thousands of acres of cornland, 
four hundred and thirty-three vineyards and orchards, fifty- 
six cities in Egypt, and the whole of the nine foreign cities 
which were allocated to the service of Igyptian religion. 
Thus the patrimony of the great god of Thebes far surpassed 
that of all his brother and sister deities in Egypt. It was at 
least five times as great as that of the Sun-god Ra at 
Heliopolis, and it was ten times greater than that of Ptah at 
Memphis; yet in the early ages of the kingdom, the gods of 
Heliopolis and Memphis had been reckoned among the 
wealthiest divinities of Egypt. We can understand the force 
of attraction exercised by a deity so richly dowered with the 
goods of this world, since, by ensuring him the means of 
conquest, they at the same time demonstrated the reality and 
power of his divinity beyond the reach of cavil.'! No wonder 
that, fostered by endowments beside which the revenues of 
the wealthiest monasteries of the Middle Ages in Europe must 
appear almost insignificant, the great religious foundations at 
Thebes should have reared to the greater glory of God those 
gigantic temples at Karnak to which no other country and no 
other age in the history of the world can present a parallel.’ 
Usarparient But towards the close of the twentieth dynasty a decline 
of kingly set in; a paralysis seems to have struck the line of Rameses. 


power by . ° * 
the High The later kings of that dynasty led no armies into foreign 


auests of lands: they neglected even the Delta, Memphis, and Ethiopia, 
at Thebes: and what little activity they displayed, was devoted to the 
he dyn: 

acai paes service of the gods of Thebes. No longer enriched by the 
kings, 


1G, Maspero, Histotre anctenne des Allertum, pp. 405 - 409 sired Pie 
peuples de LOrient classique: les  iigyptische Religion ®, p. 85. 
premieres milées des peuples (Paris, 
1897), pp. 557-559; <A. Erman, 2 A. Erman, Dee dgyptische Re- 
Aegypten und aegyptisches Leben im  ligton”, pp. 84 59. 


Mito no tL Os LV PYGANCIENT LGVPRTIANS 579 


spoils of conquest, the treasury of Amon-Ka was drained to 
supply the wants of the vast religious establishment : poverty 
stared the clergy in the face. To replenish their empty 
coffers the priests wrested from the feeble and degenerate 
successor of Rameses the Third the right of levying taxes 
on the Theban people and of appropriating to the service of 
God certain of the revenues of the city. Finally, when the 
last Rameses had been gathered to his fathers, the high priest 
of Amon-Ra, grasping at the show as well as the substance of 
power, made himself king of Egypt and so became the founder 
of the twenty-first dynasty, the dynasty .of the priestly kings.’ 
Under the ghostly sway of these Theban popes, who, The 

like their brethren of Rome in the Middle Ages, combined Moca 
the spiritual with the temporal power, the central Egyptian female 
government assumed the form of a theocracy. For the real Ca 
rulers, the high priests of Amon-Ra, masked their rescripts wife of 
under the guise of oracles of the god, who, with the help Resin iin 
a little pious jugglery, complacently signified his assent to 
their wishes by nodding his head or even by speech. But 
oddly enough the papal power was wielded, nominally at 
least, not by the pope himself but by a woman, the earthly 
consort of Amon-Ra. Her office was hereditary, passing by 
rights from mother to daughter. But probably the entail 
was often broken by the policy or ambition of the men who 
stood behind the scenes and worked the oracle by hidden 
wires for the edification of the multitude. Certainly we 
know that on one occasion King Psammetichus the First 
foisted his own daughter into the holy office by dedicating 
her to Amon under a hypocritical profession of gratitude for 
favours bestowed on him by the deity. And the female 
pope had to submit to the intrusion with the best grace she 
could assume, protesting her affection for the adopted 
daughter who had ousted her own daughter from the throne. 
When kings reigned at Thebes, the wife of the god was 
either the queen or a princess.” 

Peis yein eVallis, budge, ) 7.4e)  pp.63475sg0..0 357. 899-5 C..P;. Liele, 
Gods of the Egyptians, ii, 123; G. Geschichte der Religion im Altertum, 
Maspero, H7stoire ancienne des peuples i. (Gotha, 1896), pp. 66, 98-100; H. 
de VOrient classique: les premieres VK. Hall,in The Cambridge Ancient His- 
mélées des peuples (Paris, 1897), pp. Zor, iii.(Cambridge, 1925), pp. 251599. 


559-566; J. H. Breasted, estory of 2 A.Erman, Dee deyptische Religion ?, 
the Ancient Egyptians (London, 1908), pp. 87, 1&5 syy. As to the oracular 


580 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLE'S Came 


The Queen Not only was the Queen of Egypt usually the wife of 
cone to the Sun-god, but she was believed to be actually impregnated 
be the wife by him and in consequence to give birth to a son, who was 
tal aa no other than the king of Egypt; for from the fifth dynasty » 
be.impreg- onward the king was styled the Son of Ra and was believed 
ee *Y to have been physically begotten by the Sun-god.' The 
divine marriage, the birth of the royal infant, and his or her 
recognition by the gods are carved and painted in great 
detail on the walls of two ancient temples, one at Deir el 
Bahari and the other at Luxor; and the _ inscriptions 
attached to the sculptures leave no doubt as to the meaning 
of the scenes. The sculptures at Deir el Bahari, which 
represent the begetting and birth of Queen Hatshopsitou 
(Hatshepsut), are the older and have been reproduced with 
but little change at Luxor, where they represent the beget- 
ting and birth of King Amenophis the Third. There is a 
prologue in heaven, in which the god summons his assessors, 
the deities of Heliopolis, and reveals to them the future 
birth of a new Pharaoh, a royal princess, and requests them 
to make ready the fluid of life and of strength, whereof they 
are the masters. Then the god is seen approaching the 
queen’s bed-chamber: the mystery of incarnation takes place: 
Amon-Ra lays aside his godhead and becomes flesh in the 
likeness of the king,.the human spouse of the queen. The 
union of the two follows immediately. On a bed of state 
the king and queen appear sitting opposite each other, with 
their legs crossed. The queen receives from her husband 
the symbols of life and strength, while two goddesses, the 
patronesses of matrimony, support the feet of the couple 
and guard them from harm. The text which encloses the 
scene sets forth clearly the mystic union of the human with 
the divine: “Thus saith Amon-Ra, king of the gods, lord 
of Karnak, he who rules over Thebes, when he took the 
form of this male, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, 
Thothmes the First, giver of life. He found the queen when 


jugglery see J. H. Breasted, A7story 
of the Ancient Egyptians (London, 
1908), pp. 357 5g. Compare Zhe 
Golden Bough, Part I. Zhe Magic 
Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 
134 5g. 


1 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 53; ‘A, Erman, 
Die «agyptische Religion®, p. 493 
J. H. Breasted, Development of Religion 
and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp. 


15 59. 


Ries OOTP IOF SUN RY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 58 


she lay in the glory of her palace. She awoke at the fragrance 
of the god and marvelled at it. Straightway His Majesty 
went towards her, took possession of -her, placed his heart in 
her, and shewed himself to her in his divine form.” Further 
he announces the birth of her daughter, the future queen.’ 
It was therefore much more than an idle compliment, a The kings 
piece of courtly flattery, when the ancient Egyptians spoke 0) ®? 


2 ‘ supposed 

of their kings as the offspring of the Sun-god. They really to be the 

1 ee ~ cae: offspring 
looked upon them as divine Sons of a divine Father. “ It of coe 


has never been doubted that the king claimed actual s°¢. 
divinity ; he was the ‘great god’, the ‘golden Horus’, and 
son of Ra. He claimed authority not only over Egypt, but 
over ‘all lands and nations’, ‘the whole world in its length 
and its breadth, the east and the west’, ‘the entire compass 
of the great circuit of the sun’, ‘the sky and what is in it, 
the earth and all that is upon it’, ‘every creature that walks 
upon two or upon four legs, all that fly or flutter, the whole 
world offers her productions to him’. Whatever in fact 
might be asserted of the Sun-god was dogmatically predic- 
able of the king of Egypt. His titles were directly derived 
from those of the Sun-god.” ” 

Of all the kings of Egypt none displayed so fervent, so Devotion of 
fanatical a devotion to the worship of the Sun as a king of ede 
the eighteenth dynasty, the famous Amenophis (Amenhotep) worship of 
the Fourth, who reigned from about 1380 to 1362 B.C. peices 
But his devotion: took a heretical turn. A philosophic naa 
dreamer, absorbed in the contemplation of the divine and theism, the 
engrossed in a visionary scheme of a religious reformation, Worship of 
which was to sweep away all the barbarous and monstrous disk under 
gods of his country and replace them by a pure monotheism, pees 


the worship of the Sun as the only god, he frittered away 
his short life in a vain attempt to elevate his people to the 


1 A, Moret, Du Caractere religieux 
de la Royauté Pharaonigue (Paris, 
1902), pp. 48-54. For a full descrip- 
tion and discussion of the various 
scenes, with illustrations, see A. Moret, 
op. cit. pp. 48-73. Compare A. Wiede- 
mann, Herodots swettes Luch, pp. 
268 sg.3; The Golden Bough, Part I. 
The Magic Art and the Evolution of 
Kings, ii. 130-133. 


2 (Sir) Peter le Page Renouf, ‘‘ The 
Priestly Character of the earliest 
Egyptian civilisation”, Proceedings of 
the Soctety of Biblical Archaeology, xii. 
(1890) p. 355. Compare Zhe Golden 
Bough, Part I. The Magic Art and the 
Evolution of Kings, i. 418 sg. 


3 The Cambridge Ancient History, 
Nery Oz; 


582 WORSHIP OF SUN BY. NON-ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


contemplative heights at which he loved to expatiate in 
thought, while his kingdom fell into disorder and his Syrian 
empire crumbled away under the pressure of the new and 
formidable empire of the Hittites, which wds now rising, 
like a dark and menacing cloud, on the northern horizon. 
The old titles and effigies of the Sun-god were abolished. 
Instead of the many names in which he had _ hitherto 
rejoiced, he was to be known henceforth by the simple name 
of Aton, which signified the solar disk. He was no longer 
permitted to prance about with the legs of a man and the 
head of a ram or a hawk. ‘Truth to nature was now the 
watchword of the reformation, and after all what is the sun 
to our eyes but a bright disk with beams radiating from it? 
Accordingly a bright disk with beams radiating from it was 
to be thenceforth the sole image of the Sun: the shocking 
impiety of likening him to a man or a beast was no longer 
to be tolerated. But as a slight concession to human 
weakness the sunbeams were provided with human hands, 
which they extended in an affectionate manner towards their 
orthodox worshippers. The pattern of orthodoxy was 
naturally set by the king, and on the monuments of his time 
he and his wife are often represented thus basking in the 
rays of the divine Sun. But nevertheless the Sun was still 
so far personified that he passed for the father of the king. 
In his inscriptions Amenophis the Fourth repeatedly refers 
to him as “ Aton my father”. 
Command: In his zeal for the unity of God, the king commanded to 
a poten erase the names of all other gods from the monuments, and 
the images to destroy their images. Singularly enough, the rage of the 
sate abe reformer was particularly directed against Amon or Amon- 
ofallthe Ra, who, on account of the close alliance which, in his 
aaa ik capacity of a ram, he had struck up with the Sun, might 
the name of well have been spared the indignities to which he was now 
Amon-Ra. subjected. But no, he had to go with the rest of the old- 
fashioned deities. Even the sanctity of the grave was not 
respected, masons scoured the cemetery of Thebes and 
hammered out the obnoxious name of Amon wherever it 
appeared on the tombs. The long rows of statues of the 
high and noble, memorials of Egypt’s ancient but now fast 
vanishing glories, ranged in silent and solemn grandeur 


xt WORSHIP OF SUN BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 583 


along the walls of the great temple at Karnak, were similarly 
mutilated by the erasure of the once honoured name. 
Stone-cutters climbed to the tops of the lofty obelisks and 
chipped away the name of Amon even on the apex. Worse 
still, the name of the king’s own father Amenophis 
(Amenhotep) had to be effaced on his monuments because 
it contained the name of Amon. Even the private apart- 
nents of the late monarch in his splendid palace at Thebes 
were invaded and the king’s name erased from the sumptuous 
decorations of the walls, leaving unsightly gaps where 
the mason’s chisel had struck out the royal cartouche. 
The name of the reformer himself suffered from precisely 
the same defect ; for was not he too an Amenophis? ‘The 
sensitive king felt the name like a blot on his scutcheon, and 
he changed it for one in which the new name of the deity 
figured instead. He was henceforth known as Ikhnaton, 
which means “ Aton is satisfied”, or “He with whom Aton 
is satisfied”. 

Thebes itself, the ancient capital of his glorious ancestors, 
full of the monuments of their piety and idolatry, was no 
longer a fit home for the puritan king. Perhaps as he 
looked westward at evening from his palace window, and 
saw the sun, which he worshipped, setting behind the 
mountains, the long line of the royal tombs in the deep 
shadows below might seem to reproach him silently for the 
outrage he had committed on the dead, his ancestors, who 
slept in these solemn mausoleums. Be that as it may, he 
deserted Thebes and built himselfa new capital, which he called 
Akhetaton, “Horizon of Aton”, situated some three hundred 
miles lower down the river, at the place now known as Tell- 
el-Amarna. It isa fine and spacious bay in the cliffs which 
hem in the valley. Here in a few years a city of palaces 
and gardens rose like an exhalation at his command, and 
here the king, his dearly loved wife and children, and his 
complaisant courtiers led a merry life. The Sun-god was 
worshipped with songs and hymns, with the music of harps 
and flutes, with offerings of cakes and fruits and flowers. 


The king 
changed 
his own 
name to 
Tkhnaton. 


The 
capital of 
Fgypt 
shifted by 
the royal 
reformer 
from 
Thebes to 
Tell-el- 
Amarna. 


Life in 


Blood seldom stained his kindly altars. The king himself the new 


celebrated the offices of religion. He preached with unction, 
1 J. U1. Breasted, in Zhe Cambridge Ancient History, ii, 113. 


capital : 
the king in 
the pulpit. 


Reaction 
after the 
death of the 
reformer. 


584 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARVAN FEOPLE Se cHae 


and we may be sure that his courtiers listened with at least 
an outward semblance of devotion. From the too faithful 
portraits of himself which he has bequeathed to us we can 
still picture to ourselves the heretic king in the pulpit, with 
his tall, gaunt figure, his bandy legs, his pot belly, his long, 
lean, haggard face, aglow with the fever of religious fanati- 
cism. Yet “the doctrine”, as he loved to call it, was 
apparently no stern message of renunciation in this world, 
of terrors in the world to come. The thoughts of death, of 
judgment, and of a life beyond the grave, which weighed 
like a nightmare on the minds of the Egyptians, seem to 
have been banished for a time. Even the name of Osiris, 
the awful judge of the dead, is not once mentioned in the 
graves at Tell-el-Amarna. So life at Akhetaton glided 
peacefully away in a round of religious ceremonies and pious 
meditation. Rumours of war and prayers for help from 
hard-pressed vassals fell unheeded on the ears of the devout 
monarch; like the muttering of distant thunder, they were 
drowned in the noise of psalmody and the music cf harps 
and flutes. 

But. the reformation, so fondly inaugurated, was brief 
and transient; it hardly outlasted the life of the reformer. 
His death was followed by a violent reaction. The old gods 
were reinstated in their rank and privileges: their names 
and images were restored, and new temples were built. 
But all the shrines and palaces reared by the heretic king 
were thrown down, even the sculptures that referred to him 
and to his god in rock-tombs and on the sides of hills were 
erased or filled up with stucco: his name appears on no 
later monument, and was carefully omitted from all official 


lists. The new capital was abandoned, never to be inhabited 
again. Its plan can still be traced in the sands of the 
desert.! 


1 On this attempted reformation of 
religion, one of the most curious and 
interesting episodes in Egyptian history, 
see Lepsius, in Verhandlungen der 
konigl. Akademte der Wrssenschaften 
zu Berlin, 1851, pp. 196-201; H. 
Brugsch, Hzstory of Egypt (London, 
1879), i. 441 sgg.3 A. Erman, Aegypten 
und aegyptisches Leben tm Allertum, 


PP. 74 59-5 355-3573 #d., Die dgyptische 
Religion *, pp. 76-84; A. Wiedemann, 
Aegyptische Geschichte (Gotha, 1884), 
pp. 396 sgg.; wa., Die Religion der 
alten Agypter, pp. 20-22; id., Religion 
of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 35-43; 
C. P. Tiele, Geschichte der Religion im 
Altertum, i. (Gotha, 1896) pp. 84-92 ; 
G. Maspero, A/istotre ancienne des 


Rt WORST OF SUN BY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 585 


Of all the surviving monuments of this attempted reforma- Hymns to 
tion, the most remarkable are the hymns addressed to the Bayes 
Sun-god under his new name of “Aton. Two of them, 
which have been found engraved on the tombs of nobles, 
may perhaps have been composed by the king himself; 
if so he may rank, like David in Israel, as the sweet 
singer of Egypt. A portion of one of them may serve as a 
specimen of a hymn which has been compared to the 
hundred and fourth psalm. 


‘ Thy dawning ts beautiful in the horizon of the sky, 
O living Aton, Beginning of life! 
When thou risest in the eastern horizon, 
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty. 
Thou art beautiful, great, glittering, high above every land, 
Thy rays, they encompass the lands, even all that thou hast made. 
Thou art Ra, and thou carriest them all away captive ; 
Thou bindest them by thy love. 
Though thou art far away, thy rays are upon earth ; 
Though thou art on high, thy footprints are the day, 


When thou settest in the western horizon of the sky, 
The earth ts tn darkness like the dead ; 
They sleep in their chambers, 

Their heads are wrapped up, 

Their nostrils are stopped, 

And none seeth the other, 

While all thetr things are stolen, 

Which are under their heads, 

And they know tt not. 

Every lion cometh forth from his den, 
All serpents, they sting. 

Daz RUESS es 

The world ts in silence, 

Fle that made them resteth in his horizon. 


Bright ts the earth when thou risest in the horizon. 
When thou shinest as Aton by day | 
Thou drivest away the darkness. 


peuples de LOrtent classigue: les 
premiéres mélées aes peuples, pp. 
316 sgg.; (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 
The Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 68-84 ; 
A. Moret, Avugs and Gods of Egypt 
(New York and London, 1912), pp. 
41-68; J. H. Breasted, History of the 
Ancient Egyptians (London, 1908), 
pp. 264-289; za., Development of 
Religion and Thought im Anctent 


Egypt (London, 1912), pp. 319-3433 
7d., in The Cambridge Ancient History, 
li. 109-129; T. E.. Peet, 76. pp. 203- 
207; W. Max Miller, Agyprzan ALytho- 
logy (London, etc., N.D.), pp. 224 sgg¢. 
Compare Zhe Golden Bough, Part 1V. 
Adonis, Attts, Ostris, ii. 123-125, 
from which I have here borrowed some 
sentences. 


586 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES. CHar: 


Hymn to When thou sendest forth thy rays, 
the Sun- The Two Lands (igypt) are in daily festivity, 


Boo ton Awake and standing upon their feet 


lVhen thou hast ratsed them up. 

Their limbs bathed, they take thetr clothing, 
Thetr arms uplifted in adoration to thy dawning. 
Then in all the world they do thetr work, 


All cattle rest upon their pasturage, 

The trees and the plants flourish, 

the birds flutter in thetr marshes, 

Their wings uplifted tn adoration to thee. 

All the sheep-dance upon thetr feet, 

All the winged things fly, 

They live when thou hast shone upon them. 

The bargues sail up-stream and down-stream altke. 
Every highway ts open because thou dawnest, 
The fish in the river leap up before thee. 

Thy rays are in the midst of the great green sea. 


Creator of the gerimt in woman, 

Maker of seed in man, 

Giving life to the son in the body of his mother, 

Soothing him that he may not weep, 

Nurse even in the womb. 

Gtver of breath to animate every one that he maketh ! 

When he cometh forth from the womb... on the day of his birth, 
Thou openest his mouth in speech, 

Thou suppliest his necessities. 


When the fledgling in the egg chirps in the shell, 
Thou givest him breath therein to preserve him alive, 
When thou hast brought him together 

To the point of bursting it in the ege, 

fle cometh forth from the egg 

To chirp with all his might. 

Fle goeth about upon his two feet 

When he hath come forth therefrom. 


How manifold are thy works ! 

They are hidden from before us, 

O sole God, whose powers no other possesseth, 
Thou didst create the earth according to thy heart 
While thou wast alone: 

Men, all cattle large and small, 

All that are upon the earth, 

That go about upon their feet 

All that are on high, 

That fly with their wings. 


UP VOR STI OF SONIBY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 587 


The foreign countrtes, Syria and Kush, Hymn to 

The land of Iegypt, the Sun- 

Thou settest every man into his place, Ea 
Thou suppliest their necessities. 

fevery one has his possesstons, 

And his days are reckoned. | 

The tongues are divers in speech, 

Their forms likewise and their skins are distinguished 

for thou makest different the strangers . 


Thy rays nourish every garden , 

When thou risest they live, 

They grow by thee. 

Thou makest the seasons 

In order to create all thy work : 

Winter to bring them coolness, 

And heat that they may taste thee. 

Thou didst make the distant sky to rise therein, 
Ln order to behold all that thou hast made, 
Thou alone, shining in thy form as living Aton, 
Dawning, glittering, going afar and returning. 
Thou makest millions of forms 

Through thyself alone; 

Cities, towns, and tribes, highways and rivers. 
All eyes see thee before them, 

Lor thou art Aton of the day over the earth. . 


Thou art in my heart, 
There 1s nosother that knoweth thee 
Save thy son [khnaton. 
Thou hast made him wise 
In thy designs and in thy might. 
The world 1s in thy hand, 
Even as thou hast made them. 
When thou hast risen they live, 
When thou settest they die ; 
For thou art length of life of thyself, 
Men live through thee, 
While their eyes are upon thy beauty 
Until thou settest. 
All labour is put away 

When thou settest in the west.” » 


1 J. H. Breasted, Development op Egyptian Religion, pp. 40-42; A. 
Religion and Thought in Ancient Erman, Die agyptische Religion”, pp. 
Egypt (London, 1912), pp. 324-328; 79-81; (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 
id,, in The Cambridge Anctent History, The Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 75-79; 
li, 117-119. Compare 7zd., History of | A. Moret, Atnugs and Gods of Egypt, 
the Anctent Egyptians (London, 1908), pp. 55-58; W. Max Miiller, Aeyptran 
pp. 273-277; A. Wiedemann, Anctent Mythology, pp. 227-231. 


Devotion of 


the Queen 
to the 
Sun-god. 


The 
Queen's 
prayer. 


Other 
prayers to 
the Sun- 
god. 


588 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES CHAP. 


In another hymn of the reformed religion we read : 


‘‘ Tt ts the breath of life in the uostrils to behold thy rays. 
All flowers live and what grows in the soil 
Is made to grow because tion dawnest, 
They are drunken before thee. 
All cattle skip upon their feet ; 
The birds in the marsh fly with joy, 
Their wings that were folded are spread. 
Uplifted in adoration to the living Aton,” } 


The king’s wife, Queen Nofretete, with whom _ he 
appears to have lived on terms of warm affection, and who 
is depicted on his monuments adoring in his company the 
disk of the Sun and blessed by his radiant glory,’ shared 
his devotion to that great deity. She gave expression to 
her reverence in the following prayer : 

“Thou disk of the Sun, thou living god! there is none 
other beside thee! Thou givest health to the eyes through 
thy beams, Creator of all beings. Thou goest up on the 
eastern horizon of the heaven, to dispense life to all which 
thou hast created ; to man, four-footed beasts, birds, and all 
manner of creeping things on the earth, where they live. 
Thus they behold thee, and they go to sleep when thou 
settest. Grant to thy son, who loves thee, life in truth, to. 
the Lord of the land, that he may live united with thee in 
eternity. Behold his-wife, the Queen Nofer-i-Thi | Nofretete ]. 
May she live for evermore and eternally by his side, well- 
pleasing to thee: she admires what thou hast created day by 
day. He (the king) rejoices at the sight of thy benefits, 
grant him a long existence as king of the land! ”° 

Vain prayer! The hand of death may already have 
been on the sickly and emaciated king. Cut off in the 
flower of his age, he soon slept in a rock-cut tomb in a 
lonely valley, where one of his Aas nse had been laid to 
her last rest before him.* 

Carved on stones of the deserted capital have been 
found prayers addressed to the Sun-god by lesser mortals, 


1 J. H. Breasted, Development of Egyptians, p. 37; A. Erman, Dze 
Religion and Thought in Anctent <agyptische Religion ®, p. 83. 


Egypt, p. 331. 3-H. Brugsch, story of Egypt, 
2 (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 7he i. 450. 
Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 73, 773 4 J. H. Breasted, in 7he Cambridge 


A. Wiedemann, Aeligion of the Ancient Ancient History, ii. 127. 


MAGI eUNG tT OF SOV Y ANCIENT, EGYPTIANS 589 


who shared in the devotion of their royal master to the new 
deity, and assisted him by their labours in various capacitics. 
One of the humbler devotees was the king’s steward, another 
his architect named Bek. The steward prays thus to the 
setting Sun: 

“ Beautiful is thy setting, thou Sun’s disk of life, thou 
lord of lords, and king of the worlds. When thou unitest 
thyself with the heaven at thy setting, mortals rejoice before 
thy countenance, and give honour to him who has created 
them, and pray before him who has formed them, before the 
glance of thy son, who loves thee, the King Khunaten 
[Ikhnaton]. The whole land of Egypt and. all peoples 
repeat thy names at thy rising, to magnify thy rising in like 
manner as thy setting. Thou, O God, who in truth art the 
living one, standest before the two eyes, Thou art he which 
createst what never was, which formest everything, which art 
in all things; we also have come into being through the word 
of thy mouth. Give me favour before the king for ever ; let 
there not be wanting to me a peaceful burial after attaining 
old age in the land of Khu-aten, when I shall have finished 
my course of life in a good state.”' With the steward’s 
prayer we may compare the epitaph on the architect’s tomb- 
stone. Onthe stone the figures of the architect and his 
wife are seen standing in a niche. On the right-hand side 
runs an inscription: “A royal sacrifice to Hormakhu, the 
sun’s disk, who enlightens the world; that he may vouch- 
safe to accept the customary offerings of the dead on the 
altar of the living sun’s disk, in favour of the overseer of the 
sculptors from life, and of his wife, the lady Tahir”. On the 
left-hand side of the stone is the inscription: “ A royal offer- 
ing to the living sun’s disk, which enlightens the world by 
its benefactions, in order that it may vouchsafe a perfectly 
complete good life, united with the reward of honour, joy of 
heart,.and a beautiful old age, in favour of the artist of the 
king, the sculptor of the lord of the land, the follower of the 
divine benefactor, Bek ”.” 

Before concluding this sketch of Sun-worship in ancient 
Egypt we must quit the speculative heights, on which the 

11. Brugsch, Astory of Egypt, 2H. Brugsch, estory of Lgyft, 
i. 449. 1. 445. 


The 
steward's 
prayer to 
the Setting 
Sun. 


The 
sculptor's 
prayer. 


The Sun- 
god Ra 
deemed 
the first 
king of 
Mgypt. 


Antiquity 
of the reign 
of Ra. 


Humanity 
of Ra. 


Myths of 
the origin 
of the Sun- 
god. 


590 WORSHIP .OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuar, 


contemplative genius of the royal reformer loved to dwell, 
and plunge once more down to the level of those ruder ages 
and grosser minds which personified the Sun-god in myths 
redolent of human limitations, passions, and frailties. 

The Sun-god Ra was regarded by the Egyptians, not 
only as a solar deity, but also as the first king of Egypt. 
In early times the people seem to have held this notion 
with a tenacity which no theological subtleties, no priestly 
refinements availed to shake. Not until later ages did Ra 
yield his place in popular favour to Osiris, the model of 
Egyptian kings, and even then he was not entirely deposed; 
for while Osiris was believed to have ruled as a man over men 
only, the reign of Ra was relegated to a time when gods still © 
sojourned among men, and the Sun-god ruled over both.! 

The reign of Ra was placed in the remotest antiquity. 
“The like has not happened since the time of Ra”, was a 
common phrase used of any event to which no parallel 
within the memory of man could be adduced. The god 
was conceived by the Egyptians as existing purely in the 
shape of a man. In popular tales, such as the Tale of the 
Two Brothers,’ he appears walking on earth along with 
other gods, conversing with mortals, granting to his favourites 
gifts, which did not always minister to their permanent 
happiness, and conceived as a kindly old man. There is 
nothing singular in such notions. On the contrary they are 
commonplaces in the childlike religion of primitive peoples. 
But in Egyptian faith the Sun-god Ra was brought into 
still nearer relations to humanity by the belief that he was 
the begetter of the Egyptian kings, and that at the last he 
sank into a drivelling old age.® Evidence of this belief 
in the ultimate dotage and decrepitude of the Sun-god will 
meet us immediately. 

As to the origin of the Sun-god various stories were told. 
According to one account, he originated, no one knew exactly 
how or where, in the great primeval ocean called Nun.* 


1 A. Wiedemann, Religion of the  <Anctenne 3 (Paris, N.D.), pp. 8, 9 5g. 


dA IEG EDT as 8 A, Wiedemann, Keligion of the 


2) (Sir) We M) Flinders! > Petrie, Pte are 
Egyptian Tales, Second Series(London, LE aad absense 2h 


1895), pp. 45, 49-51; G. Maspero, $V A, Erman, Die dgyptische Re- 
Les Contes populatres de 1 'Eeypte ligion®, p. 32. 


MMe oONor( COLSON BRYOANCIENI EGYPTIANS 59! 


Many people thought that he first appeared as a child sitting 
in a lotus flower which bloomed in the primordial watery 
abyss.’ Perhaps the notion may have been suggested by the 
sight of the sun rising over the flooded Delta, where lotus 
flowers spangled the shimmering surface of the water.” 
According to another account, the Sun-god was hatched from 
an egg, which lay in a nest, which rested ona hill, which rose 
from the water. Eight primeval monsters, in the form of 
frogs and serpents, were present at the birth, and so was a 
cow. No sooner was the infant god hatched from the egg 
than he climbed on the back of the cow and, so mounted, 
swam about in the water. As for the egg, it was not laid by 
any living creature but fashioned on a potter’s wheel by the 
creator-god Ptah of Memphis. Abydos likewise could point 
to the birthplace of the Sun.’ We have seen that in Egyptian 
mythology the sky was supposed to have originally lain flat 
on the earth until it was raised to its present position by the 
god Shu, who, dexterously interposing himself between the 
bodies of the deified Earth (Seb or Keb) and the deified Sky 
(Nut), pushed up the firmament to the lofty position which it 
has occupied ever since. On this view the Sun, which must 
have at first lain flat on the ground, was elevated, simultane- 
ously with the deified Sky, to the vault of heaven; and on 
Egyptian monuments he is represented sailing in his boat 
over the back of the Sky-goddess Nut.’ 

But another and even more barbarous myth was told to 
account for the position of the sun in the sky. It is said 
that the Sun-god Ra, the king of gods and men, grew old 
and feeble ; his bones turned to silver, his limbs to gold, and 
his hair to lapis lazuli. So men despised him and plotted 
against him. But Ra heard the words which men spoke 
about him ; and he said to one of his following, “ Call to me 
my eye (the goddess Hathor or Sekhet), and the god Shu 
and the goddess Tefnut, the god Seb and the goddess Nut, 
and the fathers and the mothers who were with me when I 
was in Nun (the primeval waters), and call also Nun him- 
self (the god of the primeval waters), let him bring his 

1 A, Erman, Die dgyfptische Re- 3 A. Erman, Dre dgyptische Re- 
ligion*, p. 3 ligion*, p. 33. 


isi 
2 (Sir) E. A, Wallis Budge, ° Zhe 4 A, Erman, Die dgyptische Re- 
Gods of the Egyptians, i. 522. ligion*, pp.35 sg. See above, pp. 71-73. 


Myth told 
to account 
for the 
position 
of the Sun 
in the sky. 


Ra accuses 
men of 
plotting 
against 
him. 


Ra sends 
forth his 
Gye to 
destroy the 
men who 
plotted 
against 
him, 


The 
goddess 
Hathor, as 
the eye of 
Ra, slays 
mankind, 


Ra 

stops the 
slaughter 
by render- 
ing Hathor 
tipsy. 


592 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuav. 


companions with him ; let him bring them in all sec:ecy, that 
men may not see them and flee”. Now when these gods 
came to the place where Ra was, they cast themselves down 
to earth before his majesty, and he spake to Nun, the father 
of the oldest gods, the maker of men, the king of those that 
know. He said: “O thou eldest god, by whom I first had 
my being, and ye ancestral gods! behold, mankind, who 
had their being from mine eye,’ plot against me. Tell me 
what ye would do in face of this. Take ye counsel for me. 
[ will not slay them until I have heard what ye say con- 
cerning it.” 

Then spake the majesty of the god Nun: “O my son 
Ra, thou god that art greater than his father and his creator, 
thy throne standeth fast, great is the fear of thee, turn thine 
eye against those who have uttered blasphemies against 
thee”. And when Ra turned his eye upon them, they fled, 
into the desert,” for their hearts were full of fear because of 
that which they had said. Then the gods spake .to his 
majesty, to Ra the king, saying: “Send forth thine eye; 
let it destroy for thee the people which imagined wicked 
plots against thee. There is no eye among mankind which 
can withstand thine eye when it descendeth in the form of 
the goddess Hathor.” 

So the goddess Hathor went forth, she slew mankind in 
the desert,? she waded in their blood. Then the heart of Ra 
smote him, and he commanded that the butchery should 
cease. But the goddess had tasted blood, and she refused 
to obey. “By thy life,” she answered, “when I murder men, 
my heart is glad.” The fall of night alone arrested the 
carnage. 

While the cruel goddess slept, Ra took steps to prevent 
her from utterly destroying mankind on the following day. 
He said: “Call unto me swift messengers; let them run 
like a blast of the wind; let them run to Elephantine ; let 


1 In an obscure myth about the 
eye of the Sun it is said that the Sun 
wept, and that men arose out of the 
tears which fell from his eye. See 
A, Erman, Dee dgyptische Religion ?, 
p. 34: 

* So Maspero (‘ta désert”) and 
Erman (‘6722 ade Wiste”); ‘unto the 


hills”? (Wiedemann); ‘into the moun- 
tain” (Budge); ‘‘to the (desert) 
mountains ” (W. Max Miiller), 


3.So Erman (‘° 7 der Wiste”); 
‘‘upan the hills” (Wiedemann) ; ‘‘on 
the mountain” (Budge); ‘‘on the 
mountains” (W, Max Miiller). 


Rite ORS sl? OF DCW BY ANCI-FWT EGYPTTANS 593 


them bring me many mandrakes”.' So the mandrakes were 


brought and the god delivered them to the grinder who 
dwells in Heliopolis, and he ground them to powder, while 
handmaids brewed barley beer. Then the powder of the 
mandrakes was poured into the beer, and the beer was red as 
blood. Seven thousand jars of the red beer were brewed. 
The majesty of King Ra came with the gods to behold the 
beer. And when the morning broke, and the goddess 
Hathor would have resumed the slaughter, Ra said, “I will 
protect men against her. Carry the beer to the place where 
she would slay mankind.” So the beer was carried there 
and poured out, and it flooded the fields four spans deep. 
In the morning the goddess came, she found the fields 
flooded, she saw her face beautifully reflected in the beer, and 
she drank of the beer, and her heart was glad, and she 
returned home drunk, and took no more thought of men. 
Thus did the old Sun-god save mankind from utter 
destruction. But he would rule no more eis these his 


But, tired 
of dwelling 


among 
ungrateful creatures. ‘“ By my life,” quoth he, “my heart is men, the 
weary of abiding with them.” But the gods remonstrated ere 
with him, saying, “Speak not of weariness; thy might is pian the 
according to thy desire”. Nevertheless, the CATV MOU ae tea ane 
god replied to Nun, Si god of the primeval waters, sa 
° 1S 
saying: “For the first time my limbs ail; I will not wait daughter 
until this weakness seizeth mea second time”. To discover ates (the 
a retreat and place of rest for the worn-out Sain god, NOW goddess) in 
fallen into the vale of years, was a task for Nun, the god the form 


of the primeval waters. He called his daughter, the Sky- 
goddess Nut, and she turned herself into a cow, and took the 
Sun-god on her back, and lifted him up aloft ; and there she 
herself became what is now the sky. But when Nut looked 
down from heaven, she trembled at the great height. So 
Ra called the god Shu to him and said, “ My son Shu, put 
yourself under my daughter Nut, take her on thine head”. 
And Shu did as he was bidden, and since then he has 
supported the heavenly cow, on whose belly the stars 
twinkle and the sun sails along in his boat. For, according 


1 So Wiedemann, Maspero, Budge, Erman leaves untranslated, remarking 
and W, Max Miiller, following Brugsch, that it must be some fruit with a red 
The Egyptian word is add, which juice. 


VOL. I . 2-0 


The sky 
conceived 
as a cow 
and 
identified 
either with 
Hathor or 
with Nut. 


Another 
story of 
how Ra, 
the 
Sun-god, 
destroyed 
his enemies 
by Horus 
the 
Sparrow- 
hawk 

( Horbe- 
hudti), in 
the form of 
a winged 
disk. 


594 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cuatr. 


to one scheme of Egyptian cosmography, the celestial vault 
is in fact a gigantic cow, and the sun travels in his bark 
along the stomach of the animal, which is propped up and 
prevented from collapsing by various divinities, especially by 
Shu. The heavenly cow is sometimes identified with the 
coddess Hathor and sometimes with the Sky-goddess Nut. 
As for the Sun-god Ra, he perched on the back of the cow ; 
and there he created for himself a kingdom, to wit the upper 
heaven, with its green fields spangled with stars, and one of 
the fields he ‘called’ the*Field of Rest-7" There: thes blessaq 
dead, a great multitude whom no man can number, gather 
to him, and walk these happy fields, and praise him, their 
Maker, for ever and ever, 

The destruction of the enemies who took advantage of 
Ra’s age and infirmities to plot against him is related in 
another myth, which explains the meaning of the winged 
disk as a symbol of the sun. The story sets forth how, 
when Ra was in Nubia with his warriors, his foes conspired 
against him. Ra did not himself go forth to battle with 
them, but had recourse to the god Horbehudti, that is, 
Horus the Sparrow-hawk, who thereupon flew up to the sun 
in the form of a great winged disk ; therefore was he thence- 
forth called the Great God, the Lord of Heaven. From 
heaven he saw the foemen, he pursued them as a great 
winged disk. Because of his fierce onset their eyes no 
longer saw, their ears no longer heard ; every man slew his 
neighbour, not a head remained whereby they could live. 
When Ra was sailing in his bark on the water, and the 
crocodiles and hippopotamuses opened their.jaws to devour 
him, then came Horbehudti with his servants; every one 
of them had an iron lance and a chain in his hand; then 
they smote the crocodiles and the hippopotamuses ; and 
the number of the foes of Ra-that were slain before the 
city of Edfu was three hundred and eighty-one. Thus 


! This account of the attempted 
destruction of mankind by Hathor, 
and the retirement of the Sun-god 
to the sky, is found in a magical book 
which may have been written under 
the Middle Kingdom and is preserved 
in royal tombs of the New Kingdom, 
See A. Erman, Dee dgyptische Religion”, 


pp. 36 sg.; A. Wiedemann, Rel/tezon 
of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 58-64 ; 
G. Maspero, //istozre anctenne des 
peuples de L Orient classique: les 
origines, pp. 164-169; (Sir) E. A, 
Wallis Budge, 7he Gods of the Egyp- 
tians, i. 363-369; W. Max’ Miiller, 
Egyptian Mythology, pp-~73-78. 


Mier ORS AIP OOF SUNIBY ANCTENTSEGYPTIANS 595 


did the god Horbehudti traverse the whole of Egypt in the 
company of Ra, warding off all evil and harm from the king 

of the gods. Hence it was hoped- and believed that he 
would always and everywhere exert the same _ beneficent 
power ; therefore the image of the winged disk of the sun The image 
was placed over the entrances to the inner chambers ol tee 
temples as well as over their gates; and it was carved on disk of 
tablets and other objects as a talisman to stave off harm and Pac 
destruction. Sometimes the emblem is simply a winged 
solar disk, but sometimes it is combined with two serpents, 

one on either side of the disk ; occasionally the serpents are 
crowned with the diadems of Upper and Lower Egypt. 
They represent the tutelary goddesses of the two divisions 

of the land, namely, the goddesses Nekhebit and Uazit, 
whom the Greeks called Ejileithyia and Buto. While these 
winged disks were rarely represented in the Old Kingdom, 

they were common in the New; and in later times a series 

of such disks would be placed one below the other on the 
same monument, doubtless in the hope that the efficacy of 

the sacred symbol would be strengthened by its repetition. It 

is probable that originally Horbehudti, the god of the winged 

solar disk, was an independent deity of the sun, the peer 

of Ra, though afterwards, in the fusion of local worships, he 
came to be subordinated to that great god, who drew so 
many once distinct deities, like planets, into his orbit.’ 

But nowhere are the feebleness and decrepitude of the How Isis 
aged Sun-god Ra depicted so vividly as in the famous myth aces 
which relates how the cunning enchantress Isis wheedled him the Gods 
out of his secret name, and by transferring it to herself )Y"4ui"s 


the aged 
became mistress of his divine powers ; for in accordance with Sun-god 
the doctrine of primitive magic a person’s true name is not ae vi 
a mere empty sound but a substantial part of him, which her his 
carries with it the personal qualities and powers of the owner Dea 
and can be purloined, like any other piece of property, and 

used against him by an enemy. In this story of the cajoling 

of Ra, we read that Ra had many names, but that the great 
name, which gave him all power over gods and men, was 
known to none but himself. However, by this time the god 

was grown old; he slobbered at the mouth, and his spittle 


1 A, Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 69-78. 


596 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES cCuap. 


fell upon the ground. So Isis gathered up the spittle and 
the earth with it, and out of the two, by her magic art, she 
fashioned a serpent, which stung Ra as he passed on his daily 
journey to and fro. The god suffered agonies from the effect 
of the poison, and Isis offered to deliver him from his pangs, 
if only he would reveal to her his secret name. The god held 
out for a time, but at last he could bear the torture no more, 
and in a moment of weakness; to obtain relief, he consented 
that Isis should search into him, and that his name should 
pass from his breast into hers. It did so, and Isis kept her 
part of the bargain by reciting a spell, which caused the 
poison to flow out of the god’s body. Thus possessed of the 
divine name, Isis became the Queen of the Gods; but robbed 
of his name, and ashamed of his fallen state, ka hid himself 
from the gods, and his place in the ship of eternity was 
empty.’ 

Myth of the Even in the zenith of his power and glory, before he 

eS sank into the fens and bogs of a feeble old age, the Sun-god 


the Sun- 
god with Ra or Amon Ra had to contend with a foe more fierce and 


Spies dangerous than any mere human enemy. This dreadful 
hy being was the huge serpent or dragon, Apep, Apepi, or 
Apophis, who dared to oppose and obstruct the passage of 
the Sun-gods bark both in the sky above and the world of 
the dead below. He seems to have personified the principle 
of darkness in opposition to the sunlight. Originally, perhaps, 
he was the thick darkness which brooded over the primeval 
abyss of water (Nun), before the sun arose from it to 
illumine the universe; but afterwards he apparently stood 
for darkness in general, whether the gloom of midnight or of. 
the murky storm-cloud. In the Books of Overthrowing Apep 
he is spoken of at one time as a serpent, and at another asa 
crocodile; but in the pictures of Egyptian papyri he is 
always portrayed in the form of a serpent with a knife stuck 
in each of his coils. In the Book of the Gates he is to be 
1 A,Erman, degyplenundaegyptisches  Religton of the Ancient Egyplians, 
Leben im Altertum, pp. 359-3623 7a@., pp. 54-58; (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 
Die dgyptische Religion®, pp. 173 59.3 The Gods of the Egyptians, i, 360-363; 
R. V. Lanzone, Dezzonario di mitologia W. Max Miiller, Zgyvftian ALythology, 
egizta(Turin, 1881-1884), pp. 818-822; pp. 79-83; Zhe Golden Bough, Part I. 
G, Maspero, Histoire anctenne des Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, 


peuples de LOrient classique: les pp. 387-389. . 
origines, pp. 162-164; A. Wiedemann, 


Mier Ono lL OL SUN RY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS | ‘597 


seen chained to the ground by five chains, while another 
chain is fastened round his neck and is held at one end bya 
god. But the eye of the Sun-god is victorious over the 
dragon, and in the combat the crew of the Sun-god’s boat 
exult when they see how the monster is laid low, how his 
limbs are slashed with knives, his body scorched with fire, 
and his soul punished still more cruelly... In one aspect 
of this combat we may perhaps detect a mythical account of 
a solar eclipse.” 

In the Books of Overthrowing Apep the various ways of How the 
dealing with the dragon and overcoming him are described SN" 
in great detail. He is to be speared, then gashed with was to be 
knives, every bone of his body is to be severed by red-hot “s"°¥**: 
knives, his head, legs, and tail are to be amputated, and 
what little remains of him is to be scorched, singed, roasted, 
and finally shrivelled up and consumed by fire. The same 
fate was in store for his accomplices and for everything that 
pertained to them, such as their shadows, souls, doubles, and 
Spirits; all these were to be clean wiped out of existence, 
and the same radical treatment was to be administered to 
any offspring of which they might be the unhappy parents.° 

In Upper Egypt a special service was daily performed with Magical 
the object of destroying the power of the dragon and frustrat- Sy" 
ing his attacks on the Sun. The service consisted in reciting destruction 
a series of chapters at certain hours of the day, while at the Pe 
same time the celebrant performed a set of magical rites. performed 
Thus one rubric directs that the name of the dragon, Apepi, ehh 
should be written in green ink on a piece of new papyrus, 
and that a waxen figure of the fiend should be made, and his 
name inscribed in green ink on the covering; and the papyrus 
with the name of Apepi on it was to be placed inside the 
covering of the figure. And the celebrant was to cast the 
figure on the ground, and to stamp on it with his left foot 
and defile it, and to spit upon it four times a day. And he 
was to put the figure in the fire and as the wax melted and 


1 A.Erman, Die dgyptische Religion?,  ancienne des peuples de Jl Orient 
pp. 11, 73 sg.; (Sir) E. A. Wallis class¢gue: les origines, pp. 90 sg. 
Budge, Zhe Gods of the Egyptians, i. 2G. Maspero, /.c. 

324 sg.; A.Wiedemann, Re/igeon of the $ (Sir) E. A. Wallis “Budge, Ze 
Ancient Egyptians, pp. 49, 91, 92, Gods of the Egyptians, 1. 270 s4., 
99 sy., 102; G. Maspero, Hzstotre 325 sg. 


Survival of 


primitive 
magic in 


Egypt. 


598 WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES Cu. xiii 


the papyrus burned, the dragon would decay and fall to 
pieces. And when the wax was melted, the refuse was to 
be mixed with filth and burned again. This must be done 
at midnight, the hour at which the Sun-god began his return 
journey towards the east in the underworld, and it was to be 
repeated at dawn, at noon, and at eventide; and it might 
be performed with advantage whenever the sky lowered or 
clouds gathered for rain. And the foul fiends that’ aided 
and abetted Apepi in his impious attacks on the Sun-god 
were effectually disposed of in like manner. Waxen images 
of them were made and inscribed with their names and tied 
up with black hair and the celebrant cast them on the 
ground, kicked them with his left foot, and pierced them 
with a stone spear. 

The document which contains this interesting liturgy was 
written about 312-311 B.C., though the compositions which 
it contains are probably very much older. It suffices to 
prove that down toa time subsequent to the Macedonian 
conquest, when Egypt was permeated by Greek influence, 
the religion of that conservative country was still saturated 
with elements borrowed from primitive and world-wide 
magic.’ 

1 (Sir) E. A. Wallis Budge, 7Ze Geds The document which contains these 
of the Egyptians, i, 270-272. Compare _ particulars is known as the papyrus of 


The Golden Bough, Part I. The Magic Nesi-Amsu. 
Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 67 sq. 


AC eh eee Lv 
THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA 


§ 1. The Worship of the Sun among the Hindoos 


THE worship of the sun has prevailed in India from the The Sun 
most ancient times of which we have record down to the ee 
present day. It has not been confined to immigrants of Aryansand 
the Aryan stock, but has been shared by the Dravidian Neer e ee 
aborigines. We have seen that the Aryans of the Vedic age from _ 
worshipped the Sun under the two names of Surya and een 
Savitri or Savitar.. But “ever since Vedic times the Sun “y. 

has not ceased to figure prominently in the pantheon as well 

as in the poetic and religious literature of India. A great 

part of the Bhavishya Purina is specially consecrated to 

him. Traces of his worship are found on the coins of the 

satrap kings who ruled over Gujarat towards the Christian 

era, as well as on those of the Indo-Scythian princes. Ata 

later date, in the same region, one at least of the kings 

of Valabhi is designated in the inscriptions, Adztyabhakia, 
worshipper of the Sun. Ai little more towards the north, 

at Multan, in the Punjab, a temple was erected to this 

god, the most celebrated in India, the splendours of which 

have been described by Hiouen- Thsang and the Mussul- 

man writers, and which was finally destroyed only under 
Aurangzeb. There were other sanctuaries at Gwalior in 
Rajastan, in Kashmir, and in Orissa. Perhaps Iranian 
influences had something to do with the organisation of this 

worship during the middle age; at any rate, a great array 

of Indian proper names would by itself show how much this 

cultus was in vogue throughout India. In fine, the Sun has 


1 Above, pp. 443 599. 
599 


Sun- 
worship 

in India 
during the 
Middle 
Ages. 


Sun- 
worship 
favoured by 
the Moghul 
emperors. 


WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN [NDIA  CHap. 


600 


always been in a way the professional and family god of 
astronotners and astrologers, who rarely fail to invoke him 
at the commencement of their writings.” ? 

The worship of the Sun appears to have: flourished in 
India during the middle ages; for in the time of the famous 
philosopher and commentator Sankara, who was born in 
788 A.D., there were no less than six distinct sects of Sun- 
worshippers. One sect worshipped the rising Sun, which 
they identified with Brahma; a second sect worshipped the 
noonday Sun, which they identified with Siva; a third sect 
worshipped the setting Sun, which they identified with 
Vishnu ; a fourth sect worshipped the Sun in all three of 
these phases, identifying it with the Tri-murti or triad of 
forms; a fifth sect worshipped the Sun in the form of a 
man with golden hair and a golden beard, and zealous 
inembers of this sect refused to eat anything in the morning 
till they had seen the Sun rise ; and a sixth sect worshipped 
an image of the Sun formed in the mind. Members of this 
last sect spent all their time in meditating on the Sun, and 
were.in. the habit of branding circular representations of his 
disk on their foreheads, arms, and breasts.” 

Akbar the Great, who founded the Moghul empire in 
India and reigned from 1556 to 1605 A.D., aimed at estab- 
lishing a religion which should reconcile the Mohammedan 
with the Hindoo faith? In pursuit of this statesmanlike 


1 A. Barth, Zhe Religions of India 
(London, 1882), pp. 257 sg. The 
Puranas are a class of epic works, 
didactic in character and sectarian in 
purpose, which are on the whole later 


629 and 645 A.D. and recorded his 
travels in works which are still ex- 
tant. See Zhe Jmpertal Cazelteer of 
India, The ludian Enipire, ii. 79 sgq. 
Aurangzeb was the sixth Moghul 


than the great Sanscrit epic, the emperor of India. He reigned from 
Mahabhérata. Yhe oldest of them, 1658 to 1707A.D. See Zhe Imperial 
the Vayu Purana, dates from about Gazetteer of India, The Indian Empire, 
320 A.D. See The Imperial Gazetteer ii, 401 sgq, 

of India, The Indian Empire (Oxford, 2 Monier Williams, Religtous 
1909), ii. 236. Aditya, meaning son Thought and Life tn India (London, 
of Aditi, is a name of the Sun. It . 1883), p. 342; W. Crooke, Zhe 


is not often applied to him in Vedic 
literature, but it is a common name 
for the Sun in the Srahmanas and 
later books. See A. A. Macdonell, 
Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897), 
pp. 30, 44. Hiouen-Thsang (Hiuen- 
tsiang) was a famous Chinese pilgrim 
who, as a Buddhist, travelled through 
practically the whole of India between 


Popular Religion and Folk-lore of 
Northern India (Westminster, 1896), 
i. 7, who gives Sankara’s date as 
1000 A.D. As to Sankara’s birth, I 
follow Professor A. A. Macdonell, in 
The Imperial Gazetteer of India, The 
Indian Empire, ii. 254. 

3 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 
The Indian Empire, ii. 397, 398. 


xiv WORSHIP OF THE SUN AMONG THE HINDOOS 601 


policy he endeavoured to introduce a special form of Sun- 
worship. He commanded that the Sun should be adored 
four times a day, namely at morning and evening, at noon 
and midnight. He collected a thousand and one Sanscrit 
titles of the solar deity, and he read them daily, facing 
devoutly towards the sun. Then he would lay hold of both 
his ears, and, turning quickly round, would strike the lower 
ends of his ears with his fists. He ordered his band to play 
at midnight, and used to be weighed against gold at his 
solar anniversary.’ His son Jahangir was also a worshipper 
of the Sun; and if further evidence of his devotion were 
needed, it would be furnished by the Mithraic symbolism 
on his tomb at Lahore as well as by the accounts of 
contemporary historians and Portuguese missionaries, who 
all notice the assiduous worship paid to the Sun by the 
early Moghul emperors.” 

Of the Sun-god’s temples in India that of Kanarak in 
Orissa, near the temple of Juggernaut, was built about the 
MocPiingwo! thew thirceenth: century -of-,our~era:’ It is 
described as one of the most exquisite memorials of Sun- 
worship in existence ; its luscious ornamentation is at once 
the glory and the disgrace of Orissan art. Yet the temple 
is now deserted and in ruins.* Ruinous, too, is another 
famous temple of the Sun at Martand, in Kashmir, about 
three miles east of Islamabad, the old capital. It was 
built in the eighth century of our era and has long been 
roofless. The pillars and pilasters resemble some of the 
later forms of Roman Doric. Round about the temple are 
the ruins of about eighty small cells.° The situation is 
appropriate, for it is very sunny and commands magnificent 
prospects over the beautiful Vale of Kashmir, the paradise 
of the East, with its sacred streams and glens, its orchards 
and green fields, surrounded on all sides by lofty snow-clad 
mountains.® But the glory of the Sun-god has departed. 


1 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 4 Monier Williams, Aeligious 
Folk-lore of Northern Lndia, \. 7. Thought anid Life in India, p. 343. 
1 ; peas wees Indian (Lon- & The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 
con, » D. 445. y ae hire die s1 OG. 

3 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and LU Gel EA tae tU es ess) 809 
Folk-lore of Northern India, i. 6; zd., 6 W. Crooke, 7hings /ndian, pp. 


Things Indian, p. 445. 445 59. 


Temples of 
the Sun 
in India. 


Sects of 


Sun-wor- 


shippers. 


Straj 


Narayan, 


the Sun- 
god. 


602 WORSHIP OF THE SUN [IN MODERN INIDIA 


CHAP. 


He is no longer looked on as a great god, but only as a 
godling, or even as a hero who once lived and reigned on 
earth.! At the present day there are few temples dedicated 
to him in Northern India, including two or three in Bengal. 
There is a small shrine in his honour close to the Anna- 
pirna temple in Benares, where the god is represented sitting 
in a chariot drawn by seven horses ; he is worshipped with 
the fire-sacrifice in a building detached from the temple. In 
other temples the god is represented by an equestrian image 
or merely by a circle painted red. But images of him, 
whether under his title of Surya or Aditya, are com- 
paratively rare in modern times. His worship has been 
largely taken over by Vishnu, and wherever the cult of Siva 
is predominant, that of the Sun falls into neglect.’ 

The Saura sect worship the Sun as their special god 
under the name of Suryapati. They wear a crystal necklace 
in his honour, and abstain from eating salt on Sundays, and 
on the days when the sun enters a sign of the zodiac. They 
make a red mark on their forehead. Their headquarters 
are now in Oudh.? They never eat until they have seen 
the sun. Nowadays they are few in number, but formerly 
they were more numerous.* Another sect called Nimbarak 
worship the sun in a modified form. Their name means 
“the sun in a wm tree” (Azzdirachta Indica), and to 
explain it they tell how at the prayer of their founder, who 
had invited a friend to dinner after sunset, the Sun-god 
obligingly descended on a #ém tree and continued to shine 
there till the dinner was over.° 

The popular modern name for the Sun-god or Sun- 
godling is Straj Narayan. “He is thus regarded as 
Narayana or Vishnu occupying the sun. A _ curiously 
primitive legend represents his father-in-law, Viswakarma, 


1 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 
Folk-lore of Northern India, i. 5. 

2 W. Crooke, 7hings Jndian, pp. 
445, 446; zd., Popular Religion and 
folk-lore of Northern India, \. 5 sq. 
The author’s statements in these two 
passages as to the number of temples 
of the Sun appear discrepant. In the 
former passage Mr, Crooke says that 
‘‘in North India few temples are 
dedicated to the Sun”’; in the latter, 


he says that ‘‘there are many noted 
temples dedicated to him”, and he 
enumerates more than nine suchtemples. 

3 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 
Folk-lore of Northern India, i. 6. 

4 W. J. Wilkins, Wodern Hinduism, 
Second Edition (Calcutta and Simla), 
P- 345. 

5 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 
holk-lore of Northern /ndia, i. 6 sq. 


xiv WORSHIP OF THE SUN AMONG THE HINDOOS 603 


as placing the deity on his lathe and trimming away one- 
eighth of his effulgence, leaving only his feet. Out of the 
blazing fragments he welded the weapons of the gods.” * 


In the Punjab, particularly in the eastern part of it sun. 


comprised within the Karnal District, the Sun-god ranks 
first among the pure and benevolent deities adored by the 
peasants. Any villager, on being asked what divinity he 
reveres most, will mention the Sun-godling, Swraz Devata ; 
for the worship of the Sun has in great measure dropped 
out of the higher Hindooism, and the peasant calls the solar 
deity, not Deva but Devata, a godling, not a god. No shrine 
is built for him, but on Sunday, his holy day, the people 
abstain from salt, and do not set milk as usual to make 
butter, but convert it into rice-milk and give a portion of it 
to Brahmans. A lamp, too, is always burned in honour of 
the Sun on Sundays. Every now and then Brahmans are 
fed in the name of the Sun on Sunday, especially on the 
first Sunday after the fifteenth day of the month Sarh, 
_when the harvest has been got in, and the agricultural year 
is over. Before a Hindoo takes his daily bath, he throws 
water towards the Sun.* Moreover, the pious householder 
bows to the Sun as he leaves his house in the morning. 
His more learned brethren repeat the Gédyafr?, that ancient 
Aryan prayer, saying, “ May we receive the glorious bright- 
ness of this, the generator, the God who shall prosper our 
works!”* In the chilly mornings of the cold weather, when 
the sleepy coolies awake with a yawn, you may hear them 
muttering, “ Siraj Ndriyan” in salutation to the Sun, while 
the yellow light of dawn spreads over the eastern sky.* 

In the mythology of the Rajputs, of which a better idea 
may be obtained from their heroic poetry than from the 


1 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 
Folk-lore of Northern India, \. 5. 


2 (Sir) Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, Report 
on the Revision of Settlement of the 
Panipat Tahstl and Karnal Parganah 
of the Karnal District (Allahabad, 
1883), p. 147; td., Outlines of Punjab 
Ethnography (Calcutta, 1883), p. 114. 


3 (Sir) Denzil C. J. Ibbetson, Report 
on the Revision of Settlement, etc., 
p. 147; W. Crooke, Popular Religion 


and Folk-lore of Northern /ndia, i. 8. 
The Géyatri prayer is from the Azg- 
veda, ili. 62. 10. See The Hymns of 
the Rigveda, translated by R. T. H. 
Griffith, vol. i. p. 87, who translates 
the stanza: ‘*May we attain that 
excellent glory of Savitar the god; 
so may he stimulate our prayers”. 
Savitar is a Vedic name of the Sun- 
god. See above, p. 448. 

4 W. Crooke, Popular Religion and 
Folk-lore of Northern India, i. 8. 


worship 


in the 


Punjab. 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Rajputs. 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Hindoos 
of the 
Bombay 
Presidency, 


604 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN [NDIA _ CHAP. 


legends of the Brahmans, the Sun-god is the deity whom 
they are most anxious to propitiate, and in his honour they 
fearlessly shed their blood in battle, hoping to be received 
into his bright abode. ‘Their highest heaven is accordingly 
the Bhanuthan or Bhanuloka, that is, “the region of the 
Sun”; and, like the Massagetae of old, the Rajput warrior 
of the early ages sacrificed the horse in honour of the 
Sun and dedicated to him the first day of the week, called 
Adityawar, contracted to Itwar.! At Udaipur, the capital 
of Mewar in Rajputana, the Sun has universal precedence ; 
his portal (Szvyapo/) is the chief entrance to the city; his 
name gives dignity to the chief apartment or hall (Suryama- 
hall) of the palace; and from the balcony of the Sun 
(Suryagokhra) the prince of Mewar, who claims to be a 
descendant of Rama, shows himself as the Sun’s representa- 
tive in the dark monsoon. A huge painted sun formed 
of gypsum in high relief, with gilded rays, adorns the hall 
of audience, and in front of it stands. the throne. The 
sacred standard. bears the image of the Sun; and a disk 
of black felt or ostrich feather, carried on a pole, displays 
in its centre a plate of gold to represent the solar orb. The 
royal parasol is called £zranza, in allusion to its shape, like 
a ray (kzran) of the Sun.” 

The worship of the Sun is prevalent among the Hindoos 
of the Bombay Presidency.2 In the Konkan, Deccan, and 
Karnatak it is deemed very meritorious to adore the Sun, 
and the Brahmans regard the Sun as their chief deity. 
Persons desirous of ensuring health, wealth, and’ prosperity 
propitiate the Sun-god by prayers and ceremonies. For 
this purpose they make weekly vows in his honour, and the 
day on which the vow is to be kept is Sunday. In the 
Deccan, on every Sunday in the month of Shravan (July- 
August), a picture of the Sun and of his mother Ranubai is 
drawn on a low wooden stool in quartz powder and wor- 
shipped ; in this picture the Sun is represented by twelve 
concentric circles, and his mother is accompanied by the 

1 Lieut.-Col. James Tod, Annals and 2 Lieut.-Col. James Tod, <Avzals 
Antiquities of Rajasthan, edited by W. and Antiquities of Rajasthan, ed. W. 
Crooke (Oxford, 1920), li. 658. Asto Crooke, ii. 659 sg. 


the horse-sacrifice offered to the Sun by 3 R. E. Enthoven, The Folklore of 
the Massagetae, see above, p. 458. Bombay (Oxford, 1924), pp. 29-40. 


xIv WORSHIP OF THE SUN AMONG THE HINDOOS 605 


figure of a swastika and a mace. The seventh day of the 
month of Magh (January-February) is believed to be the 
principal day for worship and festivities in honour of the . 
Sun-god ; the day bears the special name of Ratha saptamiz. 
In the Deccan people think that up to that day the Sun’s 
chariot is drawn by a deer, but that after that day it is drawn 
by horses, which clearly explains why from that time onward 
the days lengthen ; for naturally a deer could not be expected 
to draw the car so many hours daily as horses. Accordingly, 
on the day in question a figure of the Sun is drawn in red 
sandal paste on a low wooden stool; he is represented 
in human shape sitting in a chariot drawn by seven horses, 
or by a horse with seven faces. This figure is then placed 
in the sunshine, and the devotee worships it by offering 
it spoonfuls of water, red powder, red flowers mixed with 
red sandal paste, camphor, incense and fruits. Some people 
kneel down when they make these offerings to the Sun.’ 
The Sun-god is also worshipped by Hindoos cf the Bombay 
Presidency on various special occasions, as at solar eclipses. 
On these occasions corn is not ground, the hair is not 
combed, and cotton-seed may not be ginned.’ 

After performing his toilet a high-caste Hindoo should The Sun 
take a bath and offer morning prayers and oblations, called eee 
arghyas, to the Sun. These oblations consist of water and Brahmans. 
some of the following ingredients, namely rice, sandal oil, 
sesamum seed, white flowers, and Durva grass (Cynodon 
dactylon). In making the oblation the Brahman holds the 
spoon to his forehead and empties it towards the Sun, after 
reciting the ancient Vedic prayer known as the Géyatri. 
This prayer he ought to recite one hundred and eight times. 
If water is not available for the oblation, sand may be used 
instead. But on no account may the Sun be deprived of his 
oblations. As for the Gdyatré prayer, a strict Brahman is 
bound to recite it thrice one hundred and eight times, 
making a total of three hundred and twenty-four times, 
every day of his life; if he does not, he commits as heinous 
a sin as if he were to slaughter a cow, a contingency at 
which the brain reels. To obviate the accidental occurrence 


1 R. E. Enthoven, Zhe Folklore of 2 R. E. Enthoven, Zhe Folklore of 
Bombay, pp. 32, 38 sg. Bombay, p. 40. 


Why the 
Sun 
receives 
daily 
offerings. 


The Sun 
worshipped 
by women 
for the sake 
of offspring. 


606 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA . citar. 


of this fearful, calamity, he uses a rosary with one hundred 
and eight beads, one of which he ticks off at every prayer ; 
when he has thus counted the rosary thrice over, with the 
accompanying prayer, he has so far discharged his duty 
to the Sun for the day. The right to repeat the Géyatr? 
prayer belangs exclusively to the twice-born ; nobody else is 
authorized to recite it or even to hear a word of it. Women 
and Sudras in particular ought not to catch so much as 
an echo of a single syllable of it.’ 

The reason why the Sun should not on any account 
be deprived of his oblations (arghyas) is this. Vhe Sun 
is overjoyed at the birth of a Brahman, and, carried away by 
the warmth of his feelings, he gives no less than a million 
cows in charity, counting on the new-born Brahman to make 
up to him by his oblations for this profuse liberality, since 
every drop of the oblation wipes out a thousand of the Sun’s 
enemies. Thus every Brahman at birth incurs a debt of 
a million cows to the Sun, but he discharges the debt 
by reciting the Gdyatr? prayer at least one hundred and 
eight times a day.’ 

Women believe that a vow made to the Sun is a sure 
means of attaining their desires. The aim of their vows 
is generally to ensure the birth of a male child. If her 
prayer is granted, a mother will testify her gratitude to 
the Sun by naming the child after him ; hence such names 
as Suraj-Ram, Bhanu-Shankar, Ravi-Shankar, and Adit- 
Ram. Further, she may dedicate atoy-cradle to the Sun in 
his temple as a record of the fulfilment of her vow. There 
is a temple of the Sun at Mandavraj, in Kathiawar, where 
many such votive cradles may be seen. Kich women have 
these cradles made of precious metal. In this temple 
Parmar Rajputs, with their brides, bow to the image of 
the Sun on their wedding day. And when a Rajput’s wife 
has borne him a son, the boy’s hair is shaved for the first 
time in the presence of the Sun-god at his temple, and a suit 


1 R. E, Enthoven, 7he Folklore of Census of India, 1911, vol. x. Central 
Bombay, pp. 31 sg. In the Central Provinces and Berar, Part I. Report, 
Provinces and Berar devout Hindoos, by J. T. Marten (Calcutta, 1912), p. 
on rising from bed in the morning, 81. 
bow to the Sun with folded hands and 2 R. E. Enthoven, 7he Folklore of 
one leg raised from the ground. See Sombay, p. 40. ; 


MIVen IV On SIT OFT ITE  SONVAMONG, THE: HINDOOS . 607 


of rich clothes is presented to the image by the child’s 
maternal uncle." In the Karnatak, when a girl attains to 
puberty, she takes a bath and is made to stand in the sun 
in order to conceive offspring. A barren woman attempts 
to satisfy her maternal longing by being exposed to the 
sun’s rays. Thus a physical power of impregnating women 
is apparently attributed to sunlight. Among the Chamars, 
a caste of curriers, tanners, and day-labourers found through- 
out Upper India, childless persons fast and worship the 
Sun-godling, Straj Narayan, in the hope of thereby pro- 
curing offspring.’ 


Some people think that the rays both of the sun and of The Sun 


the moon facilitate and expedite a woman’s delivery in 
childbed. Hence, before she is brought to bed, a woman is 
made to walk about in the sunlight and the moonlight ; and 
after her delivery the mother should glance at the sun with 
her hands clasped and offer him rice and red flowers. How- 
ever, in the Deccan it is more commonly believed that the 
sun’s rays are injurious to a pregnant woman, and in order 
to preserve her offspring she is obliged to take her meals in 
the dark or in the moonlight. In some places a woman is 
secluded in a dark room at the time of childbirth, and is not 
allowed to see sunlight until she presents her child to the 
Sun with certain ceremonies cither on the fourth or the 
sixth day after her delivery. Exactly a month and a quarter 
after the birth the mother:is taken to a neighbouring stream, 
there to pray to the Sun and to fetch water thence in an 
earthen vessel. This ceremony is known as Zarmasaryan. 
Seven small betel-nuts are used in it. The mother carries 
them and distributes them to barren women, who believe that 
by eating them from her hand they are likely to conceive. 
What indeed is more natural than that conception should 
be effected by the combined influence of the Sun and of 
a fruitful woman ? 


thought to 
facilitate 
delivery. 


Pregnant 
women 
secluded 
from 
sunlight. 


Rajputs, Marathas, and other warlike races love to trace Warlike 
their descent from the Sun and Moon. The descendants of ™°® 


descended 
1 R. E. Enthoven, Zhe Folklore of the North-western Provinces and Oudh erate 
Bombay, p. 30. (Calcutta, 1896), ii. 185. Nao 
2 R. E. Enthoven, 7he Folklore of 
Bombay, pp. 30 Sq. 4 R. E. Enthoven, 7he Folklore of 


3 W,. Crooke, 7rbes and Castes of Bombay. pp. 36-38. 


The Sun 

attested in 
documents 
and oaths. 


The Sun 
heals 
diseases of 
the eyes. 


The Sun 
and the 
swastika. 


608 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA CHav. 


the two luminaries are known respectively as the Sun-family 
(Suryavanshi) and the Moon-family (Somavansht). Rulers ~ 
who claim to be of the solar race always worship the rising 
Sun. They also keep a golden image of the Sun in their 
palaces, and engage learned Brahmans to recite verses in his 
honour. On Sundays they take only one meal, and that of 
simple rice, for white food is deemed most acceptable to the 
Sun." 

It is believed that nothing can escape the gaze of 
the Sun in the sky. Hence he receives the names of 
Survasakshi, that is, “Observer of all Things”, and 
Jagatchakshu, that is, “the Eye of the World”. In accord- 
ance with this conception of his nature as the universal 
witness, documents are attested in his name as Surya- 
Narayana-Sakshi, and such an attestation is supposed to 
furnish ample security for the sincerity and good faith of 
the contracting parties. An oath by the Sun is thought to 
pledge the person who takes it to the strictest veracity.’ 
From the matchless power of vision possessed by the Sun 
it follows as an obvious corollary that vows in his honour 
are highly efficacious in healing diseases of the eyes and 
strengthening the eyesight.2> For much the same reason the 
sun-face (surya-mukh) is looked upon as one of the very 
best talismans to protect the worshipper against evil; as 
such it is carved on temples and worked on ‘banners, 
which are carried in procession.4 Hindoos of the Bombay 
Presidency are in the habit of drawing designs in powder, 
red or white, as seats for the deities, whenever these 
mighty beings are to be installed and invoked. For one 
deity the design is a triangle, for another a square, for 
another a circle, and so forth. The seat for the Sun-god is 
the swastika; hence the general belief that the swastika 
represents the sun. In the Konkan some people think that 
the swastika is the central point of the Sun’s helmet, and 
they will sometimes make a vow called the swastika in its 
honour. A woman who observes this vow draws a figure 


1 R. E. Enthoven, Zhe Folklore of  Bomébay, pp. 29 sg. 


Bombay, p. 36. 4 R. E, Enthoven, Zhe Folklore of 
2 Rk. E. Enthoven, 7ze Folklore of Bombay, p. 38. 
Bombay, p. 30. ® R. E. Enthoven, 7he Folklore of 


3. R, E. Enthoven, Zhe Folklore of Bombay, p. 4t. 


xiv WORSHIP OF THE SUN AMONG THE HINDOOS 609 


of the swastika and worships it daily during the four 
months of the rainy season, and at the end of it she 
gives to a Brahman a gold or silver plate bearing the 
sign of the swastika graven upon it. But other people 
in the Konkan are of opinion that the swastika is the 
foundation-stone of the universe, or that it is the symbol 
of the god Siva, and not of the sun. Generally, through- 
out the Bombay Presidency, the swastika is held to be 
an emblem of peace and prosperity, and for that reason 
Brahman women draw a figure of the swastika in front of 
their houses.’ 

During the rainy season of the monsoons, which lasts Vows of 
four months, many Hindoos in the Bombay Presidency, and “P< 
particularly in Kathiawar, take a vow called chaturmas, Sun is 
which obliges them to abstain from eating on days when the tee 
sun is invisible. Even if the luminary happens to be hidden 
by clouds for days together, the devout votary observes his 
fast till the bright deity shines out once more.” 

_ The worship of the Sun prevails also to a certain extent Sun-_ 
among the Hindoos of Bengal. Qn this subject we are eee 
informed by Sir Edward Gait that ‘“‘amongst the godlings of Hindoos of 
Nature the Sun, Surjya or Graharaj (king of the planets), pees. 
takes the first place. The Sun-god was one of the great 

deities in Vedic times, but he has now fallen to the rank of 

a godling. At the same time he is still widely worshipped, 
especially in Bihar and amongst some of the Dravidian 

tribes of Chota Nagpur. There are temples in his honour 

at various places, notably at Kandark near Puri and at Gaya. 
Amongst his smaller temples may be mentioned one at 
Amarkund, near Berhampore, in the Murshidabad district, 

where he is worshipped as Gangaditya, and is represented by 

an equestrian image made of stone. In Cuttack the visible 
representation is a circle painted red. In Mymensingh he is 
represented as a being with two hands of a dark red colour 
mounted in a chariot drawn by seven horses. The higher Daily 
castes worship him daily while bathing, and a libation Of ewes 


1 R. E, Enthoven, 7he Folklore of Report, by J. A. Dalal (Bombay, 1902), 


Bombay, p. 45. Dei 24: 
2 R. FE. Enthoven, Ze Folklore of 
Bombay, p. 35. Compare Census of 3 «*The most celebrated temple is 


India, 1901, vol. xviii. Baroda, Part I. at Ajodhya in the United Provinces.” 
VOL. I 2R 


610 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA char. 


water (arghya) is made in his honour before other gods and 
goddesses are worshipped. The Gédyatri or sacred verse, 
which each Brahman must recite daily, is dedicated to him. 
Sunday is sacred to him, and on that day many abstain from 
eating fish or flesh; in some districts salt also is abstained 
from. The Sundays in the month of Kartik are specially 
set aside for his worship in Bihar and parts of Bengal. 
Great The great festival in his honour, known as the Chhat Puja, 
annua ig held on the sixth day of the light half of Kartik,! when 
the people gather at a river or pool and offer libations to 
the setting sun, and repeat ‘the ceremony on the following 
morning. They also make offerings of white flowers, sandal 
paste, betel-nut, rice, milk, plantains, etc. Brahman priests 
are not employed, but an elderly member of the family, 
usually a female, conducts the worship. Even Muhammadans 
join in the Chhkat Pwd. In Eastern Bengal the Sundays of 
Baisakh (occasionally Magh) are held sacred, and low-caste 
women spend the whole day wandering about in the sun 
carrying on the head a basket containing plantains, sugar, 
and their offerings. On the last Sunday of Baisdkh the 
pwa [worship] is performed, and a Brahman priest officiates. 
In Noakhali widows stand on one leg facing the sun the 
whole day. In Mymensingh unmarried girls worship the 
Sun in Magh, in the hopes of obtaining a good husband and, 
so it is said, a satisfactory mother-in-law. In Puri, Hindu 
women desirous of obtaining male offspring worship him 
on the second day after the new moon in Asin. The Sun is 
often credited with healing powers in all sorts of disease, 
such as asthma, consumption, skin diseases, white leprosy 
and severe headaches. 
Female “The Sun is a male deity, but in Rajshahi he has a 
va ge female counterpart called Chhatamata, who is worshipped, 
Sun-god. chiefly by females, on the sixth day of Kartik and Chaitra. 
On the previous day the devotee takes only rice or wheat 
cooked in milk without salt, and on the day of the ceremony 
she fasts till evening, when she goes to a tank with plantains 
and cakes, and bathes facing the setting sun. She then 
returns home, keeps vigil throughout the night and repeats 


1 This festival falls early in November, See (Sir) George A. Grierson, Bihar 
Peasant Life (Calcutta, 1885), p. 399. 


XIV WORSHIP AOLSSSONIRVINON-ARVAN PEOPLES . 611 


the ceremony in the morning. The offerings are then eaten 
by the worshipper and her friends.” ' 


§ 2. The Worshep of the Sun among non-Aryan peoples 
of modern [ndia 


In modern India the worship of the Sun is practised by Sun- 

many aboriginal tribes, especially of the Dravidian stock, Pease 
and there seems to be good reason to believe that they have aborigines 
not borrowed it from the Aryan immigrants, now represented ane 
by the Hindoos, but that they have inherited it from their the Dra- 
remote ancestors, who may well have been addicted to it ees 
long before the Aryans made their way into‘the peninsula. 
Of such tribes many are found in the Central Provinces 
of India, where in their wild mountains and forests they 
still adhere to their ancient religion and customs despite the 
gradual spread of Hindooism and Islam in the more open 
and level regions around them. 

Thus the Baigas, a primitive Dravidian tribe of the sun. 
Central Provinces, while they retain the worship of their old Bae ee 
native deities, also acknowledge certain Hindoo divinities Baigas. 
and do them reverence, but not in the orthodox manner. 
Amongst these divinities is Narayan Deo, the Sun-god. 

To him the Baigas sacrifice the most unclean of animals, sacrifice of 
the pig, but were a Hindoo to do so it would be a sacrilege. P'8*: 
The Baiga mode of sacrificing the animal is peculiar. The 
pig chosen for sacrifice is allowed to wander loose for two 
or three years, and is then killed in a cruel manner. It is 
laid on its back athwart the threshold of a doorway and a 
stout plank is placed across its stomach. Half adozen men 
sit or stand on the two ends of the plank, while the fore 
and hind feet of the pig are pulled backwards and forwards 
alternately over the plank till the wretched creature is 
crushed to death, while all the men sing or shout a sacrificial 
hymin. The head and feet are then cut off and presented 
to the solar deity: the carcase is eaten.” Pigs are sacrificed Pigs 
in similar fashion to the Sun-god by the Gonds, who are ete 
the principal tribe of the Dravidian family and perhaps the putts 

1 Census of India, 1907, vol. vi. 2 R. V. Russell, Z7zbes and Castes 


Bengal, Part I. Report, by (Sir) E. A. of the Central Provinces of India 
Gait (Calcutta, 1902), p. 188. (London, 1916), i. 85 sg. 


The 


Sun-clan of 
the Bhainas 


612 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


most important of the non-Aryan or forest tribes in India. 
In 1911 they numbered three millions and were increasing 
rapidly... With them the Sun-god, Narayan Deo, is a 
household deity. He has a little platform inside the thresh- 
old of the house. He may be worshipped every two or 
three years, but should a snake appear in the house or 
somebody fall ill, they think that the Sun-god is growing 
impatient at the delay in propitiating him, so they hasten 
to appease him by sacrifice. A young pig is offered to him 
and is sometimes fattened up beforehand by being fed on 
rice. When the time of sacrifice is come, the pig is laid on 
its back over the threshold of the door, and a number of 
men squeeze it to death by pressing down a heavy beam of 
wood laid across its body. Then they cut off the tail and 
testicles and bury them near the threshold. The carcase is 
washed in a hole dug in the yard, after which it is cooked 
and eaten. They sing to the god, “Eat, Narayan Deo, eat 
this rice and meat, and protect us from all tigers, snakes, 
and bears in our houses; protect us from all illnesses and 
troubles”, Next day the bones and any other remains of 
the pig are buried in the hole in the yard, and the earth is 
well stamped down over them.’ 

The Bhainas are a primitive tribe akin to the Baigas and 
found only in the Central Provinces. Their home is a wild 


mourns at tract of forest country. They are divided into totemic 


a solar 
eclipse. 


clans named after the animals or plants which are their 
totems. Among their totems are the cobra, the tiger, the 
leopard, the wild dog, the monkey, the vulture, the hawk, 
the quail, and the black ant. Members of a clan will not 
injure the totemic animal whose name they bear, and if they 
see the dead body of the animal or only hear of its death, 
they throw away an earthen cooking-pot and bathe and 
shave themselves, just as they would do for the death of 
one of their family. At marriage images of the totemic 
animals or birds of the bride and bridegroom are made and 
worshipped by them. Similar marks of respect are paid 
to the inanimate objects after which some of the clans are 
named. Thus the Cowdung clan will not burn cakes of 


1 R. V. Russell, of. czt. iii. 41. 2. R. V. Russell, of. cé?: iii. Totisg, 
ADR Ve Russell Sona cette aes ; 


XIV WORSHTP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES — 613 


cowdung as fuel, and the clan which takes its name from 
chillies will not use these peppers. One clan is named after 
the sun, and when the sun ‘is eclipsed, members of the 
Sun-clan perform the same formal rites of mourning which 
the members of other clans perform for the death of their 
totemic animals.! In such rites we may see an incipient 
worship of the Sun; totems appear to be in the act of 
blossoming into gods. 

The Bhunjias are a small Dravidian tribe in the Central Sun-_ 
Provinces. They bow daily to the Sun with folded hands, ae 
and believe that he is of special assistance to them in the Bhunjias. 
discharge of their debts, which they consider a primary 
obligation. When they have succeeded in paying off a debt, 
these honest debtors offer a coco-nut to the Sun as a mark 
of their gratitude to him for his assistance.” 

The Gadbas, a primitive tribe of the Central Provinces Sun- | 
who are classed as Mundari or Kolarian on the ground of their arate 
language, offer a white cock to the Sun and a red one to the ©adbas 

Dea re P and the 
Moon. The Kawars, another primitive tribe of the Central Kawars. 
Provinces, are thought to be Dravidians, though they have 
lost the Dravidian language.* They have a vague idea of a 
supreme deity whom they call Bhagwan and identify with 
the sun. They bow to him in reverence, but pay him no 
other attention because he does not interfere with men's 
concerns.” 

The Kols, Mundas, or. Hos (for the tribes described The Kols, 
by these names appear to belong to the same stock) are ed 
a great people of Chota Nagpur, who have given their name 
to the Kolarian or Mundari family of tribes and languages. 

They are distributed all over Chota Nagpur and have spread 
to the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, and Central 
India. The Santals are a branch of the Kols, and so, too, 
probably are the Bhumij, the Kharias, the Korwas, and the 
Korkus. The disintegrating causes which have split up 
what was originally one people into a number of distinct 
tribes are in all likelihood no more than distance and settle- 
ment in different parts of the country, with consequent 


1 R. V. Russell, of. cz. ii. 228 sg. 4k, V. Russell, of. cz¢t. ii. 389 
2h. V. Russell, of. ctt. ii. 327. 5Q. 
3 R. V. Russell, OPiortie Wie ls 6 R. V. Russell, of. czt. ili. 399. 


Sing- 
bonga, the 
head of 
the Munda 
pantheon, 
identified 
with the 
Sun. 


614 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA Ciav. 


cessation of intermarriage and social intercourse. Hence 
the separate tribes came to acquire different names or to 
receive separate territorial or occupational designations at 
the hands of the Hindoos, and their former identity has 
gradually been forgotten. At the present time the whole 
group of allied tribes appears to number not less than six . 
millions.” The Munda languages are quite distinct from 
the Dravidian and belong to the same family of speech 
as the Mon-Khmer of Indo-China, the Nicobarese, and the 
dialects of certain wild tribes of Malacca and Australonesia. 
In the south of India, where the Dravidian tongues prevail, 
there are no traces of Munda languages, and it seems there- 
fore necessary to conclude that the Mundas of the Central 
Provinces and Chota Nagpur did not come to their present 
home from Southern India, but that they arrived either by 
way of Assam and Bengal or by sea through Orissa, unless 
indeed India was their cradleland and from it spread the 
various peoples who now speak cognate languages in Indo- 
China, the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of the Indian 
Archipelago. None of the Munda languages have any 
proper written character or any literature.” 

At the head of the Munda pantheon stands Sing-bonga, 
the Sun, a beneficent but somewhat inactive deity, who 
concerns himself but little with human affairs and leaves the 
details of government to the departmental gods of nature. 
Nevertheless, although Sing-bonga does not himself send 
sickness or calamity to men, he may be invoked to avert 
such disasters, and for this purpose people sacrifice to him 
white goats or white cocks by way of appeal from the unjust 
punishments which are believed to have been inflicted on 
suffering humanity by his subordinates. In August, when 
the highland rice is reaped, the first-fruits of the harvest are 


1 R, V. Russell, Zrzbes and Castes 
of the Central Provinces of India, iii, 
500 sg. As to the Kols, Mundas, or 
Ilos, see further If, T. Dalton, De- 
seriplive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 
1872), pp. 151 sgg.; (Sir) H. H. Risley, 
Tribes and Castes of Bengal (Calcutta, 
1891-1892), ii. 101 sgg.; Sarat Chandra 
Roy, Zhe Mundas and thetr Country 
(Calcutta, 1912). 


2 RV; Russell, of. cat. 119503 sen 
(Sir) George A. Grierson, in Zhe 
Imperial Gazetteer of India, The Indian 
Emptre, i. 382-384. 

3 (Sir) H. H. Risley, 77bes and 
Castes of Bengal, ii i934 VE 
Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of 
Bengal, p, 186; R. V. Russell, 772des 
and Castes of the Central Provinces of 
Jndta, ili. 512. 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 615 


presented to Sing-bonga, and a white cock is sacrificed to 
him. Until this has been done, it would be an act of 
impiety to eat the new rice.’ Sing-bonga, the Sun, is said 
to have married Chando Omol, that is, the Moon, but she 
deceived him on one occasion, and in his wrath he cut her 
in two; however, he repented of his rash deed and now he 
permits her at times to shine forth in all her beauty. The 
stars are her daughters.” Sing-bonga also figures as the Sing-bonga 
creator in Munda cosmogony. In the beginning of time, ** “T°” 
we are told, the earth was covered with water; but Sing- 
bonga, the Sun-god, brooded over the face of the water, 
and the first beings to be born were a tortoise, a_ crab, 
and a leech. Sing-bonga commanded these first-born of all 
animals to bring him a lump of clay from out the depths of 
the primeval ocean. The tortoise and the crab by turns 
tried their skill, but in vain. However, the persevering 
leech succeeded in fishing a lump of clay from out the 
watery abyss, and out of that clay Sing-bonga moulded this 
beautiful earth of ours. At his command, too, the earth 
brought forth trees and plants, herbs and creepers of all 
sorts. Next Sing-bonga filled the earth with birds and 
béasts of many kinds and sizes. Last of all the swan laid 
an egg and out of the egg came forth a boy and a girl, the 
fist of human beings. These were the first parents of the 
Horo Honko, the sons of men, as the Mundas still call them- 
selves. But this first human pair, Tota Haram, the man, 
and Tota Buri, the woman, were innocent ; they knew not 
the relations of the sexes until Sing-bonga taught them how 
to make rice-beer; then they drank of it and their eyes 
were opened, and in due time three sons or, according to 
another account, twelve sons and twelve daughters, were 
born to them, and these wandered over the face of the earth 
and became the ancestors of mankind.® 
The Korkus are a Munda or Kolarian tribe in the Sun and 


: i : Moon wor- 
Central Provinces and Berar. They have a language Of chipped 


by the 
1 E, T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 3 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Alundas Korkus. 
logy of Bengal, p. 198; (Sir) H. H. and thetr Country, Appendix I. pp. 
Risley, Zrzbes and Castes of Bengal,  v.-vii. Compare E. T. Dalton, De- 
li, 104. scriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 185 ; 
2 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- R. V. Russell, Zrzbes aud Castes of 
logy of Bengal, p. 186. the Central Provinces of India, iii, 508. 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Nahals and 
Savars. 


Sun- 
worship 
aniong the 
Bhuiyas 
and 
Kisans. 


616 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA  cuar. 


their own, which resembles that of the Kols of Chota 
Nagpur.’ Their principal deities are the Sun and Moon, 
both of whom in their language they call Govszaz, which is 
also the general word for a god. The Korkus claim to be 
descended from the Sun and Moon, and they invoke these 
deities at marriage. The head of each family offers a white 
she-goat and a white fowl to the Sun every third year ; and 
when they begin to sow, the Korkus stand with the face to 
the sun; they also face the east at the performance of other 
rites. However, the Sun and Moon are scarcely expected 
to interest themselves in the common affairs of daily life ; 
these are regulated rather by the local godlings, to whom 
accordingly the Korku appeals with more fervour than to 
the great luminaries that are so far away.” The Nahals, a 
forest tribe of the Central Provinces, seem to be a cross: 
between Korkus and Bhils. They are divided into a number 
of totemic clans, among which the Surja clan worships 
Surya, the Sun, by offering him a fowl in the month of Pus 
(December-January); some members of the clan further 
keep a fast every Sunday. And while the dead of all the 
other clans are buried, the dead of the Sun-clan are burnt.’ 
The Savars, another primitive tribe of the Central Provinces, 
are likewise divided into totemic clans, one of which, Suriya 
Bansia, takes its name from the sun. On the occasion of 
a solar eclipse members of the Sun-clan feed their caste 
fellows and throw away their earthen pots.’ 

The Bhuiyas are a non-Aryan tribe of Bengal, who have 
partially adopted the Hindoo customs and religion. It is 
thought that they belong rather to the Dravidian than to the 
Munda or Kolarian stock.2. They worship the Sun under 
the titles of Boram or Dharm Deota, and they dedicate 
sacred groves to him, but make no image or other visible 
representation of the deity. As the creator and the first and 
greatest of the gods, Boram is invoked by them at the 
sowing season, when they offer him a white cock.® The’ 


1 R. V. Russell, of. c#t. iii. 550. 4 -R. V. Russell, of. c#¢) ive §05. 
SR eV seRussell, ron. eee, altos 5 57, 6 E. T. Dalton, Deseréptive Kthno- 
559; J. Forsyth, Zhe Highlands of logy of Bengal, p. 139. 
Central India (London, 1871), p. 146. 6 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 


3° R. V. Russell, of, cét. iv. 259, logy of Bengal; p. 141. Compare 7d. 
260, 261. p.t47, 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 617 


Kisans, another primitive tribe of Bengal, short of stature, 
with broad truncated noses, protruding jaws, and a dusky 
complexion varying from dark brown to black, similarly 
adore the Sun and sacrifice white cocks to him.! The 
Bhumij, a tribe of Bengal who are allied to, if not identical 
with, the Mundas, revere the Sun, under the names of 
Sing-bonga and Dharm, as the giver of harvests to men 
and the cause of all those changes of the seasons which 
affect and control their agricultural fortunes.? The Juangs 
are an aboriginal tribe of Orissa. They claim to be the 
autochthones of the country, their ancestors having sprung 
from the ground on the banks of the Baitarni river, which 
they maintain to be older than the Ganges. Their stature 
is very short, the males averaging less than five feet in 
height. The forehead is low, the chin receding, the nasal 
bone very depressed, the mouth large, the lips very thick, 
the complexion a reddish brown, the hair coarse and frizzly. 
By their language they seem to be akin to the Mundas or 
Hos, though they repudiate all connexion with that tribe. 
They practise an extremely rude form of agriculture, and 
down to recent times wore nothing but leaves and beads. 
Colonel Dalton, who had seen many primitive tribes, 
regarded the Juangs as the most primitive he had ever met or 
read of? He could find no word for god in their language and 
no idea of a future state in their minds. The even tenour of 
their lives, we are told, is not broken by. any obligatory religious 
ceremonies. Yet when they are in distress they offer fowls to 
the Sun, and they sacrifice fowls to the Earth that she may 
yield them her fruits in due season. On these occasions an 
old man officiates as priest ; he bears the title of Nagam.* 


“1K. T. Dalton, Descriptive Eth- 
nology of Bengal, »p,. 132-sq. 


2 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Zyzbes and 


of Colonel Dalton’s account of Juang 
religion or absence of religion, He 
found that the Juangs of Keunjhar 


Castes of Bengal, i, 124. 

3-E, T, Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 
logy of Bengat, pp. 152 sg., 154, 1573 
(Sir) H. H. Risley, 777zdes and Castes 
of bengal, i, 350 sg. 

4 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 
ogy oF Pervaiey. 1573. (Sir) H. H. 
Risley, Z7zbes and Castes of Bengal, 
i. 353. The inquiries of the latter 
writer led him to doubt the accuracy 


worship a forest deity called Baram, 
who stands at the head of their religious 
system and is regarded with great 
veneration, Besides him they revere 
other deities, including Basumati or 
Mother Earth. Sacrifices of animals, 
milk, and sugar are offered to all these 
deities at seed-time and harvest, and 
the forest gods are carefully propitiated 
when a plot of land is cleared of jungle 
and prepared for the plough. 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Bhumijand 
Juangs. 


The 
Kharias of 
Chota 
Nagpur. 


Legend of 
their origin. 


Their 
totemic 
system. 


618 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA chap. — 


Closely related to the Juangs by language are the 
Kharias, one of the most backward tribes of the Munda or 
Kolarian stock. Their home is in Chota Nagpur, but a few 
of them are to be found in the Central Provinces. Their 
speech belongs to the Munda family, and they resemble 
the Mundas physically, though their features are somewhat 
coarser and their figures less well proportioned.” The legend 
which they tell of their origin tends to show that they are 
an elder branch of the Munda tribe. In this legend there 
occurs an incident like that of the caskets in Zhe Merchant 
of Venice. They say that in days of old two brothers came 
to Chota Nagpur, and the younger of the two became king 
of the country. But the elder brother asked for a share of 
the inheritance. So the people put two caskets before him, 
and invited him to choose one. Now the one casket con- 
tained silver and the other only some earth. The elder 
brother chose the casket that contained the earth ; hence he 
was informed that he and his descendants were fated to till 
the soil. The Kharias say that they are descended from the 
elder brother, while the younger brother became the ancestor 
of the Nagvansi Rajahs of Chota Nagpur.2 Some of the 
Kharias are settled and are fair cultivators, but the wild 
Kharias, who frequent the crests of the forest-clad hills and 
mountains, are acquainted with no mode of agriculture 
except the barbarous system of burning down a patch of 
jungle and sowing the seed in the ashes between the stumps 
of the trees. These wandering savages are believed to be 
now rapidly dying out, and few Europeans have had an 
opportunity of seeing them in their homes. They have the 
reputation of being great wizards.» Like many other 
aboriginal tribes of India, they are divided into totemic and 
exogamous clans, the members of which pay reverence to 
their totems. Thus men who have the tortoise, the tiger, 
the leopard, the cobra, or the crocodile for their totem 
will not kill these animals ; and though men who have rice 


1 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 2, R. V. Russell, of. ctt. ili, 445 
logy of Bengal, pp. 158 sy., 160 sg.3 59. 
(Sir) H. H. Risley, Zrzbes and Castes 3 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 
of Bengal, i, 466; R. V. Russell, logy of Bengal, pp. 158, 160; (Sir) 
Tribes and Castes of the Central HH. H. Risley, 772bes and Castes of 
Provinces of India, iii. 445, 453. Bengal, i. 469, 470. 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES. _619 


or salt for their totems cannot help eating these articles, they 
compromisé by observing certain abstinences. Thus men of 
the Rice clan will not eat the scum that gathers over rice 
when it is boiling in a pot; and men of the Salt clan will 
not take up salt on one finger, though they are free to use 
two or more fingers for the purpose. Members of the Stone 


clan will not make ovens with stones, but only with clods of | 


earth. The Kharias worship various deities and among 
others the Sun, whom they call Bero or, according to 
another account, Giring Dubo. Every head of a family 
should in his lifetime make not less than five sacrifices to 
the Sun-god, the first of fowls, the second of a pig, the third 
of a white goat, the fourth of a ram, and the fifth of a 
buffalo. They think that this ought to content the deity for 
that generation, and they deem him ungrateful if, after 
accepting all these sacrifices, he does not behave handsomely 
to his votary. In praying to the Sun-god they address him 
as Parmeswar, a Hindoo word for deity. The sacrifices are 
always made in front of an.ant-hill, which is.used as an 
altar. This peculiar mode of sacrificing has fallen into 
desuetude among their kinsfolk the Mundas and Hos, but 
Colonel Dalton learned from some old men of these tribes 
that it was orthodox, though not now generally practised. 
In the worship of Bero, the Sun-god, it is the head of the 
family who acts as priest.” The Korwas are a small tribe 
of the Munda or Kolarian family, who lead a savage and 
almost nomadic life among the highlands of Chota Nagpur. 
A branch of them called the Saonts worship the Sun under 
the name of Bhagawan, and, like the Kharias, they sacrifice 
to him in an open place with an ant-hill for an altar.’ 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Kharias, 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Korwas. 


The Birhors are a small and very primitive tribe of The 


Birhors 


nomadic hunters, who roam the highlands and forests of ¢¢ Chota 
Chota Nagpur; their principal haunts are the hills and Nagpur. 


jungles which fringe that province on the east and north- 
east. The country occupied by the Birhors is a long 
succession of wooded hills, range beyond range, separated 


1 R. V. Russell, Z7zbes and Castes Risley, Z7tbes and Castes of Bengal, 
of the Central Provinces of India, iii. i. 468. 
447. F 

* E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 3 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 
logy of Bengal, p. 159; (Sir) H. H. logy of Bengal, pp. 221, 222, 223. 


Their 
totemic 
syStem. 


620 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA 


CHAP, 


by open valleys. These valleys are alone fit for cultivation, 
and are sparsely inhabited by agricultural tribes on a higher 
level of culture than the Birhors. The Birhors generally 
select for their more or less temporary settlements (¢azdas) 
open glades on the tops or slopes of the wooded hills or 
the edges of the jungle. They wander about or settle down 
for a time in small groups of from three or four to about 
ten families, earning a precarious subsistence by hunting 
deer and other animals, snaring monkeys, which they eat, 
collecting bees’ wax and honey, and gathering creepers, 
which they make into ropes for barter or sale in the neigh- 
bouring villages. But they also rear scanty crops of maize 
or beans by burning a patch of jungle, scratching the soil, 
and sowing seed in the ashes. In person they are small and 
very black, with sharp attenuated features and long matted 
hair. Their general appearance is very squalid. They live 
in little rude hovels made of bamboos and leaves.! Ethni- 
cally the Birhors belong to the same short, dark, long- 
headed, broad-nosed, and wavy-haired race as the Mundas, 
Hos, Santals, and Bhumij, and like these people they speak 
a language which is now classed in the Austro-Asiatic sub- 
family of the Austric speech, which extends throughout 
Indonesia and Melanesia.” They are divided into a series 
of totemic and exogamous clans with descent in the male 
line. To eat, kill, or destroy a man’s own totemic animal is 
regarded by the Birhors as equivalent to killing a human 
member of the clan; and were a woman to kill her husband’s 
totemic animal or destroy his totemic plant, she would be 
thought to have killed her husband himself. Men are 
supposed to resemble their totemic animal or plant in 
character or appearance. Thus members of the Vulture 
clan are said, like vultures, to have usually little hair on 
the crown of the head ; members af the Wild Cat clan have 
bald foreheads; members of the Myrobolan (dupung) clan 


personal observations and _ inquiries 


1 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Birhors 
(Ranchi, 1925), pp. 8-10, 15 sg., 24- 
26, 36, 39-41, 43-46. This valuable 
monograph embodies and supersedes 
the former very imperfect accounts of 
this interesting and hitherto little known 
tribe. It is based on the writer’s 


extending over many years. For some 
previous notices of the Birhors, see 
E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology 
of Bengal, pp. 158, 218-221. 

2 Sarat Chandra Roy, 7he Birhors, 
Pp. 59. 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYVYAN PEOPLES 621 


are generally’ short and plump like the fruit of that plant, 
and so on.’ 

The Birhors, like their kinsfolk the Mundas, believe in a Sing-bonga, 

Supreme God whom they call Sing-bonga and identify with (2° had of 
the Sun. In their language the word for sun is sezg¢. The pantheon, 
+71: ° ° ; -_ identified 
Hindoo name Bhagawan is also applied to him. He is with the 
believed to stand at the head of the pantheon but to take Su». 
for the most part no active interest in human affairs, which 
are supposed to be controlled by the lesser spiritual beings 
or impersonal forces with which the fancy of the Birhor 
peoples the universe. Yet though Sing-bonga does not 
ordinarily cause harm to men, he may. occasionally protect 
them from evil. To avert particular dangers the head of 
a family, with his face to the east, sacrifices to Sing-bonga 
a white goat or a white fowl, for the white colour symbolizes White 
the white rays of the sun. Again, at the annual ceremony (CO "* , 
for the protection of the settlement (Zazda) from harm, the to Sing- 
headman offers Sing-bonga a white fowl. The Birhors also mene 
-appeal to Sing-bonga for help on various other occasions. 
Thus when a man goes out to hunt or collect honey, he will 
sometimes invoke the aid of Sing-bonga in his search for 
game or honey.” On the day after a baby has been born, 
the father takes a jug of water in his hands, and, standing 
with his face to the east, slowly pours out the water, saying, 
“O Sing-bonga, I am making this libation of water to thee. 
May milk flow from the mother’s breast like this water. I vow 
to offer thee ‘ milk flower’® when my desire is fulfilled.” 4 

Again, in order to ensure a good crop of maize or rice, Sacrifices 
the head of a Birhor family vows to sacrifice a white fowl to ee 
Sing-bonga at threshing, if the harvest should turn out. well. ensure 
In making this vow he sits with his face to the east before ere 
a low stool on which the seed is placed in a woodei vessel. 

The votive fowl is beside him, and he prays, saying, “I make 
this vow to thee, O Sing-bonga. May grains grow in abun- 
dance, and I shall sacrifice this white fowl to thee at the 
time of the threshing.’ Meantime he releases the white 
fowl and sacrifices a black one in the name of all the 


1 Sarat Chandra Roy, 7he Birhors, 3 This is an euphemism for ‘* cow’s 
pp. 89 59g., 97 59.5 99-101. milk ”’, 
2 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Birhors, 4 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Birhors, 


pp. 288, 297 57., 333, 553 59. Pp. 225 59. 


Birhor 
theory of 
eclipses. 


622 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA © CHAR, 


neighbouring villages, so that the evil eye of any dweller in 
these villages may not fall on the crops. Then he sprinkles 
a few drops of blood of the sacrificed fowl on the seed, which 
is thereupon carried to the field and sown. This ceremony 
is observed at full moon in the month of Baisakh (April- 
May). A curious feature of the ritual is that on the eve of 
the ceremony a small fish is caught in a neighbouring stream 
or pool, taken home and kept in a jug of water until next 
day, when, after the seed has been sown, the fish is carried 
back to the stream or pool. It is believed that as the little 
fish grows in the water, so will the maize or rice grow in the 
field.’ Again, after harvest, at the ceremony of eating the 
new rice, the owner of the fields drops milk from a jug 
on the new rice, and as he drops it he prays, saying, “ Thou 
Sing-bonga in heaven, to-day I am giving thee milk. Drink 
it. From to-day may there be no sickness in stomach 
or head,” , A little of the new “rice isthen) offered tome 
ancestral spirits, and afterwards all the family eat the new 
rice and drink rice beer.” It is a rule with the Birhors that 
women should not comb their hair at sunset. The reason is 
that Sing-bonga takes his supper at that hour after his day’s 
work is over, and if women were so thoughtless as to comb 
their tresses at that time, some of the loose hair might fall 
into the god’s rice, which he would naturally resent.’ 

The Birhors have discovered a cause of solar and lunar 
eclipses which has escaped the notice of European astro- 
nomers, The truth is, according to them, that these luminaries 
have generously stood security for the debts of poor men, 
and when the creditors are tired of waiting for the repay- 
ment of'their dues they send in bailiffs to take the Sun and 
Moon into custody. In the discharge of their painful duty 
the bailiffs meet with resistance; a struggle ensucs, which 
the ignorant call an eclipse; finally the bailiffs are forcibly 
ejected, and the Sun and Moon go on their way rejoicing 
until the next occasion when they are brought into personal 
conflict with the minions of the law. During a lunar eclipse 
the Birhors clash iron implements together, seemingly in 


1 Sarat Chandra Roy, 7he Lirhors, pp. 356 sg. 
PP- 373-375. 3 Sarat Chandra Roy, 7he Birhors, 
2 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Lirhors,  p. 376. 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 623 


order to assist the Moon in the tussle by scaring the bailiffs 
away.’ 

The Birhors look upon Sing-bonga as the creator and Birhor 
tell a story of the creation of the carth which closely re- 1%" th 


sembles the one told by their kinsfolk the Mundas.” They the earth 
say that in the beginning all was water, but a lotus plant AeA 
lifted its head above the surface of the flood. Sing-bonga 
was at first in the nether regions, but he came up through 
the hollow stem of the lotus and seated himself on the flower 
of the plant. There he commanded first the tortoise and 
afterwards the crab to bring up some clay from under the 
water. The two creatures dived, one after the other, into 
the depths, but failed to bring the clay to the surface. Then 
Sing-bonga summoned the leech, who dived to the bottom, 
swallowed the clay, and emerging from the water disgorged 
it into the hand of Sing-bonga. The deity moulded the 
clay into the earth as we see it, flattening some parts of it 
with an iron leveller and scattering seeds of all sorts, which 
sprang up and became trees. After that Sing-bonga created 
first a winged horse and next mankind. He made a 
clay figure of a man by day and left it to dry. But at 
night the horse came and trampled the clay figure and 
spoiled it, for he feared that, were man created, he would 
subjugate the horse and ride on his back. So next 
morning Sing-bonga found his clay man damaged. He 
then made a fresh man of clay and a dog also of clay, 
and laid them both out to dry. By evening the clay dog 
had dried up, and the wind blew into its nostrils, and it 
became a living dog. So Sing-bonga set the dog to guard 
the clay man, who was still damp. At night the horse came 
back and would have again attacked the clay man and 
trampled him into dust, but the dog barked and kept him 
off. And when the clay man dried up, Sing-bonga endowed 
him with life. Such is the origin of the human species.’ 


1 Sarat Chandra Roy, 7he Birhors, | Mundas, but in their version a spider 
Pp. 495. is substituted for a dog, See Sarat 
2 See above, p. 615. Chandra Roy, ‘* The Divine Myths of 
3 Sarat-Chandra Roy, Zhe Birhors, the Mundas”, Journal of the Bthar 
PP. 398-400. and Ortssa Research Soctety, ii, (Banki- 


4 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Birhors, pore, 1916) pp. 201 sy. For other 
pp. 400-402, A similar story of the Indian versions of the same story, see 
creation of mankind is told by the  Folk-lore in the Old Testament, i.17-19. 


Birhor 

story of 
the first 
smelters 
of iron. 


Similar 
story of 
the first 
smelters of 
iron told 
by the 
Mundas, 


624 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA Chap. 


The Birhors say that at first men employed only sticks 
and stones as their tools and weapons, and that the Asurs 
were the first to smelt iron on this earth. But the thick 
smoke which issued from their furnaces began to incommode 
Sing-bonga up above. He sent messenger after messenger 
to dissuade the Asurs from smelting iron, but the Asurs 
refused to desist from their favourite occupation ; and more 
than that they mutilated and drove away Sing-bonga’s 
bird-messengers. So the messengers returned to Sing-bonga 
and reported to him what they had suffered at the hands of 
the Asurs. Then Sing-bonga himself in his wrath came 
down to earth, and in the shape of a boy afflicted with sores 
contrived to lure the male Asurs into a furnace and burn 
them alive. Finally, he hurled the female Asurs in different 
directions; and their spirits still haunt the rocks and woods, 
the pools and streams and springs on which they fell. Such 
was the origin of some of the elemental spirits." 

A similar story is told by the Mundas, the kinsfolk of 
the Birhors. They say that formerly there were people 
who served Sing-bonga in heaven. But seeing their faces 
reflected in a mirror they found that they were in the image 
of God and were therefore his equals. So they worked no 
more for God, and in his wrath the deity kicked them out 
of heaven. They fell on a place where iron-ore existed in 
abundance, and they immediately made seven furnaces and 
began. to smelt the iron in, them: | But -the: fréwonecre 
furnaces burned the trees and the grass, and the smoke and 
the sparks ascended to heaven. This disturbed Sing-bonga 
up aloft, and he sent them word that they must work either 
by day or by night, but not both day and night. However, 
they would not obey him. Then Sing-bonga sent two king 
crows and an owl to warn them; but, far from paying heed 
to the warning, the smelters tried to catch the birds with 
their fire-tongs and spoil their long tails. Next Sing-bonga 
sent a crow and a lark on the same errand, but with no 
better result. For whereas crows had formerly been white, 
the smelters caught the messenger crow and smoked it 
black, which has been the colour of crows ever since; and 
they caught the lark and reddened it and flattened its head ; 


! Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Birhors, pp. 402 sq. 


xiv. WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 625 


but the orders of the deity were not executed. After that 
Sing-bonga sent other messengers, but all in vain. At last 
he resolved to go himself. So down to earth he came and 
stopped at the house of an old couple of charcoal-burners, 
named Lutkum Haram and.Lutkum Buri. For a time he 
served them incognito and amused himself by playing with 
the children of the smelters. The children played with 
balls of iron and he with eggs, but his eggs smashed their 
iron balls. When the old man and his wife went to the 
woods to make charcoal, they left Sing-bonga in charge of 
the hut and told him to watch the rice that was laid out to 
dry. But he played all the time, and the fowls ate up the 
rice, all but a few grains. When the old couple returned 
they mourned for the loss of their dinner; but Sing-bonga 
consoled them, and taking the few grains that were left he 
filled all the pots with them. 

By this time the furnaces of the smelters were all falling The 
in, and the smelters sought a diviner to ascertain the cause. shisene eet 
_ They placed rice on a winnowing-fan, and it led them to their own 
Sing-bonga, and they asked him what they should do. He *""°°* 
answered, “ You must offer a human sacrifice”. But they 
could not find a man to sacrifice and so returned to Sing- 
bonga. On that the god said that he himself would be the 
sacrifice. Under his direction the smelters made a new 
furnace, and instead of iron-ore they put Sing-bonga himself 
into it and blew the bellows, and when the furnace was very 
hot they sprinkled water on the fire, as they had been 
directed, and lo! Sing-bonga came forth from the fire 
unhurt, and from the furnace flowed streams of gold and 
silver and precious stones, shining like the sun. Then said 
Sing-bonga, “See what one person has done; if you all 
pass through the furnace, what a heap of wealth you will 
have!” They agreed to be smelted; so they entered the 
fiery furnace, and the door was shut on them, and Sing- 
- bonga ordered their wives to blow the bellows. In the 
furnace the smelters shrieked and yelled, which frightened 
their wives, who would have stopped plying the bellows ; 
but Sing-bonga reassured them, saying, “ Blow away! They 
are only quarrelling over the division of the spoil”. Thus 
these wicked beings were all destroyed, because they had 

VOT SET 25 


Similar 
story of 
the first 
smelters 
of iron 
told by the 
Oraons. 


626 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA | cHap 


not obeyed the word of Sing-bonga. Then the women 
said, “ You have killed our husbands, what are we to do?” 
So Sing-bonga had compassion on them and assigned to 
each of them her abode; and they became the spirits 
(huts), both male and female, of the hills and rocks and 
groves, of the pools and rivers." 

The same story is told at full length, with minor 
variations of detail, by the Oraons to account for the origin 
of the evil spirits (64u¢s) which play a large part in the 
mythology and religion of these people. In the Oraon 
version of the legend the deity is named not Sing-bonga 
but Bhagwan. The beings who persisted in smelting iron 
and kept their furnaces ablaze day and night are called the 
twelve brothers Asurs and the thirteen brothers Lodhas. 
The smoke of the furnaces was so thick and suffocating 
that God’s horse fell sick and could not eat his corn. So, 
by the mouth of his messengers, the king crow and another 
bird resembling a hedge sparrow, God commanded the 
brothers to stop the nuisance. But the brothers paid no 
heed to his commands and even mauled and disfigured one 
of his messengers, the birds. So God himself descended 
to earth, and, taking the likeness of a man covered with 
purulent sores, he lodged with a kind old widow, who 
washed his sores and anointed him with oil. In return for 
her hospitality the deity miraculously increased her store of 
rice, to the astonishment of the widow. Being consulted by 
the iron-smelters as to the best mode of repairing their 
furnaces, which were falling into ruins, the disguised deity 
contrived, by the same trick as in the Munda version of the 
story, to decoy them into a furnace and shut them in, so 
that, when the furnace was opened again, nothing but 
charred bones was found in it. At that moment the deity 
jumped on his horse and was preparing to make a bolt for 
it, when the Asur widows came up, caught the steed by the 
bridle, and shouted, “ We won’t let you go. Now that our 
husbands are all dead, who is going to feed us?” In reply 
God pleaded the disobedience of their deceased husbands as 
a justification of the punishment he had inflicted upon them ; 
but he wound up his admonition by saying, “ Now I will 

1 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 186 sq. 


XIV MOKRSTTILP OL’ SUN BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES: 627 


give you the means to live. Become evil spirits (d/z7s), 
and your name will be Dehdebi and Dahadebi; go and live 
among the Oraons, who will offer sacrifices to you.” Such 
was the origin of the evil spirits. 

In these stories we seem to detect a dim reminiscence Tradition 
of the time when men discovered the art of smelting iron Seabee 
and began to substitute iron implements for the ancient iron. 
tools of stone and wood. The wrath of the deity at the dis- 
coverers perhaps reflects the resentment felt by conserva- 
tive members of the primitive community at the momentous 
innovation. 

The Birhors tell a story to explain why the sky is now Birhor 
so very far away. They say that in ancient times the sky °°). 
was so low as almost to touch men’s heads. Once, while separation 
an old woman was husking rice with a pestle and mortar, % 5) *"° 
her pestle knocked against the sky with such force that the 
sky was pushed up and has remained ever since hung high 
aloft.” The Gonds give a like explanation of the separation 
of heaven and earth. According to them, the sky of old 
lay close down on the earth. One day an old woman was 
weeping, and when she stood up she knocked her head 
against the sky. Ina rage she put up her broom and shoved 
the sky away ; so it rose up above the earth and has stayed 
there ever since.° Similar myths of the severance of sky 
and earth:have met us in West Africa.’ 

The Malés are a Dravidian tribe of the Rajmahal hills. Sun-wor- 
They are closely akin to the Oraons and physically represent epace® 
the extreme Dravidian type as it is found in Bengal. Their 
stature is low, their complexion swarthy, and their figure 
sturdy. Their country is rocky and wooded, and by its help 
they were able to maintain a virtual independence during 
the period of Mussulman ascendancy in Bengal.® At the 
head of their religious system stands the Sun, whom they 
call Dharmer Gosain. He is represented by a roughly hewn 


post set up in front of each house. The Malés worship him 


1 Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., ‘* Religion 3 Census of India, rgor, vol. xiii, 
and Customs of the Uraons”, Alemoirs Central Provinces, Part I, Report, by 
of the Asiatic Soctety of Bengal, vol.i. RR. V. Russell (Nagpur, 1902), p. 94. 
No. 9 (Calcutta, 1906), pp. 128-131. 4 See above, pp. 96, 109. 

2 Sarat Chandra Roy, 7he Birhors, 5 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Z7rzbes and 
p. 436. Castes of Bengal, il. 51. 


628 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA _ cCHiap. 


with offerings of fowls, goats, and oil at the beginning of 
each harvest and at other times when any misfortune befalls 
the family. When people are gathered together for this 
purpose, the village headman, who acts as priest, goes round 
the congregation with an egg in his hand, and recites the 
names of certain spirits. Then he throws the egg away, 
apparently as a propitiatory offering, and enjoins the spirits 
to hold aloof and abstain from troubling the sacrifice.’ 

Sun wor- The Mal Paharias are a Dravidian tribe who inhabit the 

Titi arie Ramgarh hills in the Santal Parganas. Their tribal affinities 

Paharias. are obscure. Down to recent times they lived by hunting 
and by the rude method of cultivation known as 7Auim, which 
consists in burning patches of the jungle and sowing seed 
in the clearings.” Their chief divinity is the Sun, to whom 
they pay reverential obeisance both morning and evening. 
Occasionally on Sundays the head of a family testifies his 
respect for the Sun by a special service. For this sacred 
duty he must prepare himself by eating no salt on the 
previous Friday and fasting all Saturday, except for a light 
meal of molasses and milk at sunset. Before sunrise on 
Sunday morning a new earthen vessel, a new basket, some 
rice, oil, areca nuts, and vermilion are laid out on a clean 
space of ground in front of the house. The worshipper shows 
these offerings to thé rising sun, and, addressing the luminary 
as Gosain, prays that he and his family may be guarded from 
any peril or trouble that might threaten them. The rice is 
then given to a goat, and while the animal is eating it, its 
head is cut off by a single blow from behind. The body 
of the goat is thereupon cooked and served up to the 
neighbours at a feast; the head alone, which is deemed 
sacred, is carefully reserved for the members of the family. 
Next in honour to the Sun is Dharti Mai, that is, Mother 


Earth.® 
The The Oraons are an important Dravidian tribe of the 
Oraons, < 
Dravidia, Chota Nagpur tableland. They number altogether about 
people of 
Chota 1 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Z7zbes and Castes of Bengal, ii. 70. Compare 
Nagpur.  Casfes of Bengal, ii. 57. E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology 
2 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Zr7bes and of ci i: P- Bhatt ae pee 
Caslfop Fenediat 66: ormation regarding the religion of this 


tribe, except that they worship the 
3 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Zribes and earth and sun”. 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN.BY NON-ARYAN PEOPLES 629 


750,000 persons, of whom 85,000 now belong to the Central 
Provinces, where they are commonly known as Dhangars, which 
means farm-servants. The name Oraon has been applied to 
them by other people; their own name for themselves is 
Kurukh or Kurunkh. The meaning of both names is obscure.’ 
Physically the people are small but well - proportioned ; 
their complexion is of the darkest brown, approaching to 
black ; their hair is jet black, coarse, and inclined to be frizzy. 
Protruding jaws and teeth, thick lips, low narrow foreheads, 
and broad flat noses characterize their faces; their eyes are 
often bright and full; no obliquity is observable in the 
opening of the eyelids. The countenances of the Oraon 
youths beam with animation and good-humour. Their 
supple, lithe figures are often models of symmetry; they 
have not the squat appearance or muscular development of 
the dumpy Himalayan tribes. There are about the young 
Oraon a jaunty air and a mirthful expression that distinguish 
him from the Munda or Ho, who has more of the dignified 
gravity that is said to characterize the North American 
Indian. He is a dandy, but only so long as he remains 
unmarried. In his roll of hair gleams a small mirror set in 
brass ; from his ears dangle bright brass chains with spiky 
pendants, and as he trips along with the springy elastic step 
of youth and tosses his head like a high-mettled steed in 
the buoyancy of his animal spirits, he sets all his glittering 
Ornaments dancing and jingling, and his laughing mouth 
displays a row of ivory teeth, sound, white, and regular, that 
give light and animation to his dusky features. In point of 
character and temperament the Oraons are said to be, if not 
the miust virtuous, perhaps the most cheerful of the human 
race,” 

Essentially an agricultural people, they would seem to 
have chosen their present home on account of its adaptation to 
their favourite pursuits.» Their country is the most gently 


1 R. V. Russell, Zribes and Castes Castes of Bengal, ii. 1393 Sarat 
of the Central Provinces of India, iv. Chandra Roy, Zhe Oraons of Chota 
299 sg.; E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Nagpur (Ranchi, 1915), pp. 80 sg.; 
Ethnology of Bengal, p. 245. R. V. Russell, 77zbes and Castes of the 

2 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- Central Provinces of India, iv. 315 sq. 
logy of Bengal, pp. 249, 250 s9., 3 Sarat Chandra Roy, Zhe Oraons 
262; (Sir) H. H. Risley, 7ribes and of Chota Nagpur, p. 105. 


The 
country of 
the Oraons, 


Dharmesh, 
the 
Supreme 
God of the 
Oraons, 
manifested 
in the sun. 


630 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA CHAP. 


undulating portion of the Chota Nagpur tableland. At the 
present day it presents to view vast areas of terraced rice- 
fields, divided by swelling uplands, some of them well-wooded 
with groves of mango, tamarind, and other useful and 
ornamental trees, others bearing stately remnants of the 
ancient forests, which still linger on these heights, the haunts 
of sylvan sprites who took refuge there in days long ago when 
the woodman’s axe was first heard in the verdurous solitudes 
of the valleys. The landscape is diversified by deep ravines, 
sounding cataracts, and masses of rocks piled fantastically 
upon each other or soaring in pinnacles hundreds of feet 
high, like the domes of sunken temples in some ruined and 
buried city. In many places the rock shows for acres 
together just flush with the surface of the ground, as if the 
crust of the earth had there been stripped bare. Such spots 
the Oraons choase above all others as sites for their villages. 
The flat or gently undulating rock affords them threshing 
floors, hard surfaces on which to spread out their grain to 
dry, holes which they can use as mortars for pounding 
their rice, and open spaces where they can trip it in the 
dances that they love. In the distance this Indian Arcadia 
is generally bounded on one or more sides by ranges of low 
hills.’ 

The Oraons acknowledge a Supreme God, whom they 
call Dharmesh or Dharmes, the Holy One, who is manifest 
in the sun. They regard him as a perfectly pure and 
beneficent being, who created us and would in his mercy 
preserve us, were it not that his benevolent designs are 
thwarted by malignant spirits or minor deities, to whom 
Dharmesh has left the management of the world. These 
evil spirits (d/u¢ts) men are obliged to propitiate, since 
Dharmesh in general cannot or will not interfere, when once 
the fiends have fastened upon us. It is therefore of little or 
no use to pray or sacrifice to him; hence, though he is 
acknowledged and reverenced, he is nevertheless neglected, 
while the evil spirits are adored.? Yet we are told that in 

1 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- logy of Bengal, p. 256; Rev. P. Dehon, 
logy of Bengal, p. 246; Sarat Chandra’ S.J., ‘‘ Religion and Customs of the 
Roy, Zhe Oraons of Chota Nagpur, Uraons”, Memoirs of the Asiatic Soctety 


pp- 52 sg. a. of Bengal, vol. i.. No. 9 (Calcutta, 
2 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 1906), p. 125. 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYVAN PEOPLES 631 


their greatest difficulties, when neither the village priest nor 
the magician has availed to help them, the Oraons will turn 
to Dharmesh as a last resource and say, “ Now we have tried 
everything, but we have still you to help us”. Then they 
sacrifice a white cock to him. They wash the feet of 
the bird, and cut its throat with a knife, and pray, saying, 
“God, thou art our creator, have mercy on us”. This 
sacrifice of a white cock is offered to Dharmesh at all the 
feasts, and also when the magician drives away the evil 
spirits.’ 

We have seen that the Oraons celebrate the marriage of Marriage 
the Sun-god with Mother Earth at a festival in spring, when sete ann 
the parts of the two deities are played by the village priest among the 
and his wife, and that until the mystic union of the god and °'*°"* 
goddess has been thus consummated, the Oraons may not 
use nor even gather the new roots, fruits, and flowers of the 
season.” 

The Santals are a large Dravidian tribe of Bengal, who The 
on the ground of their language are classed with the Kols arenes 
‘or Mundas. They occupy a strip of country some four Sees 
hundred miles long by a hundred miles broad, which ae 
stretches along the whole western frontier of Lower Bengal 
from. within a few «miles of. the sea.to the ‘hills’: of 
Bhagulpore. The nucleus of the tribe is to be found in 
the Santal Parganas or Santalia, which in the second half 
of the nineteenth century was said to contain upwards of 
two hundred thousand of them. At the same time their 
total numbers were estimated at nearly two millions. 

In appearance the Santals may be regarded as typical 
examples of the pure Dravidian stock. Their complexion 
varies from a very dark brown to almost charcoal black: 
the bridge of the nose is depressed: the mouth is large, the 
lips thick and protruding: the hair is coarse, black, and 
occasionally curly. The proportions of the skull, which 
approach the long-headed type, refute the hypothesis of 
their Mongolian descent. Their faces are round and 
blubbery ; by some observers the cast of countenance is 


1 Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., ‘‘ Religion Russell, Zzbes and Castes of the 
and Customs of the Uraons,” M/emotrs Central Pribvinces of India, iv. 310. 
of the Asiatic Soctety of Bengal, vol. i. 

No. 9 (Calcutta, 1906), p. 125; R. V. 2 See above, pp. 380 sg. 


Their 
shifting 
cultivation. 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Santals. 


They call 
the Sun 
Sing-bonga 
and 
sacrifice 
goats to 
him. 


632 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA cnar. 


thought to approach the negro type. Their stature is 
about that of the ordinary Hindoo or a little less.’ They 
delight in hunting and are very expert with bows and 
arrows, their constant weapons in the chase. Every year, in 
the hot season, when the game can least find cover, they 
have a great hunting expedition in which thousands take 
part. But the Santal also practises a form of husbandry 
for which he is in no way indebted to the superior races 
who have ousted him from the valleys, and before whom he 
retreats into the depths of the forest, where he feels most at 
home.. There he clears patches of the jungle for cultivation; 
there his harmonious flutes sound sweeter, his drums find 
deeper echoes, and his bows and arrows freer exercise. For 
him a country denuded of the primeval forest has no 
attractions. The jungle is his unfailing friend. It supplies 
all his simple wants, yielding him everything that the 
lowlander lacks—noble timber, brilliant dyes, gums, bees’ 
wax, vegetable drugs, charms, charcoal, and the skins of 
wild beasts—a little world of barbaric wealth to be had for 
the taking. There, in some sequestered spot among the 
woods and hills, he makes his home; and there now and 
then a wandering sportsman is surprised to stumble on a 
Santal village. There the Santal dwells secluded from the 
Hindoos, from whose contact he shrinks. The only Hindoo 
whom the sylvan folk tolerate is the blacksmith, who is 
attached to the village and does all the working in iron for 
the hamlet, fashioning among other things the armlets and 
rude jewellery in which the Santal matron delights.” 

Like many other Dravidian tribes of India, the Santals 
worship the Sun, but as to the exact place which he holds 
in their pantheon the accounts of our authorities are some- 
what conflicting. According to Colonel Dalton, who has 
given us a valuable account of the people, among the Santals 
of Chota Nagpur the Sun is the supreme god; they call 
him Sing-bonga, and look upon him as their creator and 
preserver. Every third year in most houses, but in some 

1 (Sir) W. W. Hunter, Aznals of of Bengal, ii. 224 sg. 
Rural Bengal® (London, 1872), pp. 2 (Sir) W. W. Hunter, Aznals of 
145 sg.; E. T. Dalton, Descriptive ‘Rural Bengal®, pp. 210-215, 218% 


Ethnology of Bengal, pp. 207, 212; E. T. Dalton,. Descriptive Ethnology 
(Sir) H. H. Risley, 77zbes and Castes of Bengal, pp. 208 sg., 216, 


XIV WOO Rodd OL SUNG Y NVONGCARVYAN PEOPLES: 633 


every fourth or fifth year, the head of the family offers a 
goat to the Sun-god, Sing-bonga, for the prosperity of the 
family, especially of the children, “that they may not be cut 
off by disease, or fall into sin”. The sacrifice is offered at 
sunrise On any open space cleaned and purified for the 
occasion. “A very important distinction is observed by all 
the Kolarians in the motive of the sacrifices to the supreme 
deity and those by which the minor gods are propitiated. To 
Sing Bonga the sacrifice is to secure a continuance of his 
mercies and for preservation. The other deities are resorted 
to when disease or misfortune visits the family, the sacrifice 
being to propitiate the spirit who is supposed to be afflicting 
or punishing them.”* But according to Sir William Hunter 
and Sir Herbert Risley, the national god of the Santals and 
the head of their pantheon is not the Sun-god Sing-bonga 
but “Marang Buru, the Great Mountain, who appears in 
their legends as the guardian and sponsor of their race; the 
divinity who watched over their birth, provided for their 
earliest wants, and brought their first parents together in 
marriage. In private and in public, in time of tribulation 
and in time of wealth, in health and in sickness, on the 
natal bed and by the death-bed, the Great Mountain is 
invoked with bloody offerings.’* However, Sir William 
Hunter so far agrees with Colonel Dalton as to admit 
that the Sun-god, whom he calls Chando, is theoretically 
acknowledged as supreme, in the religious system of the 
Santals, although he seldom receives sacrifice. “Sometimes 
they adore him as the Sim-bonga, the god who eats chickens, 
and once in four or five years a feast in his honour is held. 
The Santal religion, in fact, seems to consist of a mythology 
constructed upon the family basis, but rooted in a still more 
primitive system of nature-worship.”® According to Sir 
Herbert Risley, every Santal ought to sacrifice two goats, or 
a goat and a sheep, to the Sun at least once in his life ;* 


1 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- Rural Bengal, p. 184. According 


logy of Bengal, pp. 213, 214. 

2 (Sir) W. W. Hunter, Azszals of 
Rural Bengal’, p. 186. Compare 
(Sir) H. H. Risley, Zrzbes and Castes 
of Bengal, ii. 232. 

3 (Sir) W. W. Hunter, Annals of 


to Dalton, the Santals worship Chando 
Bonga as the Moon-god, not the Sun- 
god (Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, 
p. 214). ; 

4 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Zrzbes and 
Castes of Bengal, il, 234. 


Santal 
worship of 
Marang 
Buru, the 
Great 
Mountain, 


634 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA. .CcHae. 


Traces ofa and he tells us that “according to Mr. Skrefsrud traces may 


Supreme 
Being 
called 
Thakur, 
identified 
with the 
Sun, 
among the 
Santals. 


Worship 
of the Sun 
and the 
heavenly 
bodies not 
developed 
among the 
hill-tribes 
of Assam, 


be discerned in the background of the Santal religion of a 


Jainéant Supreme Being called Thakur, whom the Santals 


have long ceased to worship for the sufficient reason that he 
is too good to trouble himself about anybody and does 
neither good nor ill to mankind. Some identify him with 
the Sun, whom the Santals regard as a good god and worship 
every fifth or tenth year with sacrifices of slain goats. But this 
point is uncertain, and I am myself inclined to doubt whether 
a god bearing the Hindu name Thakur, and exercising 
supreme powers which mark a comparatively late stage of 
theological development, can really have formed part of the 
original system of the Santals.”? 

Among the Mongoloid hill-tribes of Assam, who differ 
radically both in race and language from the Dravidians of 
India, the worship of the heavenly bodies, including the 
sun and moon, appears to be either absent or very little 
developed. Thus of the Lushais we are told that they “do 
not worship the sun or moon or any of the forces of nature, 
though when wishing to emphasize a statement they 
frequently say, ‘If what I say is not true, may the sun and 
moon desert me’. But they believe the hills, streams, and 
trees are inhabited by various demons.”? Similarly of the 
Sema Nagas we read that “the forces and phenomena of. 
nature, though not definitely deified by the Semas, are often 
regarded as the manifestations or abodes of spirits. In the 
case of the sun and moon they are not worshipped or deified, 
and no clear conception at all is entertained of their nature. 
They are regarded as phenomena, and their existence is 
taken as a matter of course, but they are called upon to 
witness oaths and asseverations, and cannot be falsely 
invoked with impunity.”* In all oaths it is deemed 
essential by the Semas that the swearing should take place 
between sunrise and sunset, “that the sun may see the 


1 (Sir) H. H. Risley, 77ribes and Assam, Mr. IT{utton observes that 
Castes of Bengal, ii. 232. ‘‘there seems to be no worship of 
2 J. Shakespear, Zhe Lushet Kuki he ait a sat ny ut py vee 
Clalis (ovdontex9 12), p68. are called on to wi ness oaths, “sine 
they see all that takes place’, as a 
3 J. H. Hutton, Zhe Sema Nagas Nagaputit tome”. See J. H. Hutton, 
(London, 1921), pp. 249 sg. Else- ‘*Some Astronomical Beliefs in Assam,” 
where, speaking of the hill tribes of Folk-love, xxxvi. (1925) p. 116. 


XIV WORSHIP OF SUN BY NON-ARYVYAN PEOPLES 635 


oath”. The implication seems to be that the sun is a 
conscious and powerful being who can punish perjury. A 
being so conceived is on the highroad to divinity. The 
Angami Nagas so far personify the Sun that they regard him 
as female, the wife of the Moon, whom they look on as a 
male. Being a woman, she is afraid to go about in the dark 
and only shows herself by day; whereas her husband the 
Moon, being a man, moves fearlessly about in the gloom of 
night.” The Lhota Nagas think that the sun is a flaming 
plate of hard metal, as big as a piece of ground on which 
one basket of seed rice is sown; by day it travels along 
its path in the sky, and at night it returns back under the 
earth and lights up the Land of the Dead ; and the moon is 
just such another plate of flaming metal.’ Conceived in 
this materialistic way, the luminaries are far indeed from 
being deified. The Mikirs, one of the most numerous and 
homogeneous of the many Tibeto-Burman tribes inhabiting 
Assam, regard the sun and moon as divine, but do not 
‘specially propitiate them.* However, among the hill-tribes 
-of Assam the one which seems to have approached most 
nearly to a worship of the Sun is the Ao. Of this tribe we 
are told that “among the Aos, although there is no 
distinctive nature worship, there is something which closely 
approaches it. In a way there is a sun worship, but it would 
be more accurate to say that they worshipped the deity who 
controls it and its beneficent rays. When the weather is 
inclement for several days, the priests collect a number of 
eggs, and, going to a particular spot, break them and eat 
them raw, hanging up the shells for the deity. Then they 
implore the sun deity to grant favourable weather ; other- 
wise the villagers must suffer from lack of food. This is 
followed by a rest day, when the priests go from house to 
house, drinking rice beer and singing praises to the sun. 
At times they sacrifice cows and pigs to the ruling spirits of 


1 J. H. Hutton, 7he Sema Nagas, also represent the sun as female and 
p. 166, the’ moonas)malé, \ See. P:R.) 
2 J. H. Hutton, 7he Angami Nagas Gurdon, The Khasts? (London, 1914), 
(London, 1921), pp. 410 sg. One of pp. 172 sg. 
Mr. Hutton’s informants reversed the 3 J. P. Mills, Zhe Lhota Nagas 
sexes of the luminaries, but in doing (London, 1922), p. 172. 
so he contradicted the normal Angami 4 E. Stack, Zhe Mekirs (London, 
version (of, czt. p. 259). The Khasis 1908), pp. I, 33. 


Approach 
to Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Aos of 
Assam. 


Traces 

of Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Mongoloid 
tribes of 
Burma, the 
Kachins or 
Singphos 
and the 
Palaungs. | 


636 WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA cuap. 


the sun and moon. According to the Aos this has been a 
customary practice from the beginning of time, and should 
it not be kept up, the pigs and cattle would die and the 
crops fail. At some of the other festivals they appeal to the 
deities of heaven and earth, of the sun and of the moon, to 
be favourable unto them.” ? 

Among the Mongoloid tribes of Burma, immediately to 
the east of Assam, a few traces of Sun-worship have been 
recorded. Thus among the Kachins or Singphos (Ching- 
paws), a large tribe of Upper Burma, the spirits (za¢s) of the 
Sun and Moon are worshipped once each year, but only by 
the chief, who jealously guards the privilege. The ceremony 
takes place in the cold season. No living thing is sacrificed, 
but food and drink are offered, and the chief begs the spirits 
of the two great luminaries to protect the whole village.’ 
The Palaungs, a tribe inhabiting some of the hills in the 
Shan States of Burma, profess Buddhism, but like many 
Buddhists they retain numerous beliefs. and practices which 
have survived from an older worship of nature.’ Thus, they 
regard the Sun and Moon as brother spirits.so powerful that 
they are almost ranked as gods. It is believed that if these 
mighty beings are offended, they can send sickness, sunstroke, 
violent headaches, or fever as a punishment. If a wise man, 
on being consulted, decides that sickness is caused by one of 
these great lights, he advises the patient to take a freshly 
cut bamboo, split one end of it, and insert two streamers in 
the split, one red to represent the Sun, and one white to 
represent the Moon. Further, to the top of the bamboo 
pole he must fasten two pieces of paper, one of them round 
or white, with a peacock drawn on it, the other crescent- 
shaped, with a hare drawn on it; the round white paper 
stands for the Sun, and the crescent-shaped paper stands for 
the Moon; and the drawings are obviously appropriate to 
the luminaries which they represent, because, as everybody 
knows, a peacock lives in the Sun and a hare resides in the 
Moon. Having decorated the pole with these symbols, the 
sufferer plants it firmly in the ground. Then beside it he 


1 W.C. Smith, 7he Ao Naga Tribe and the Shan States, Part I. vol. i. 
of Assam (London, 1925), pp. 87 sg. (Rangoon, 1900) p. 435. 

2 (Sir) J. George Scott and J. P. 3 Mrs. Leslie Milne, Ze Home of an 
Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma astern Clan (Oxford, 1924), p. 312. 


XIV WOR SHIPLOLSSUN BYSNON-ARVAN PEOPLES. * 637 


sets up a shorter stalk of green bamboo, which supports a 
rough basket. In this basket he places yellow rice and 
yellow or red flowers for the Sun, and white rice and white 
flowers for the Moon, with two curries, one sweet and one 
SOURsOnetie top of the rice: 4. But, before he*sets up: this 
basket of offerings, the sick man holds it as high as he can 
above his head and prays, saying, “To-day I am ill; I fear 
that I may have offended thee, O Sun! thee,O Moon! pity 
me, please. I offer this rice and curry and these flowers to 
you both. Grant that I may overcome this illness, O Sun! 
O Moon!” It is best to offer this prayer at dawn.’ 

The Todas, who inhabit the lofty tableland of the sun. 
Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, are a small tribe isolated aera 
from their neighbours alike by natural surroundings, race, Todas of 
temperament, and occupation. Their racial affinities are oe 
unknown; there is no reason to connect them with the Hills. 
Dravidians, the prevailing people of Southern India, from 
whom they differ totally in physical type. They occupy 
themselves exclusively with the care of their cattle: their 
religion centres round their sacred buffaloes: the dairies are 
their temples, and the dairymen their priests: the chief 
dairyman (pa/o/) is a very sacred personage, a sort of high- 
priest.” But there is no doubt that the Sun is also an object 
of reverence to the Todas. It is the duty of every man, 
when first he leaves his hut in the morning, to salute the Sun 
by raising his hand to his face; and when the sacred dairy- 
man ( palo/) comes out of his dairy to milk the buffaloes, he 
salutes the Sun by raising his milking-pail and churn to his 
forehead. All Dr. Rivers’ Toda informants were unanimous 
in saying that the salutation of the sacred dairyman was 
offered both to the buffaloes and the Sun. The doors of the 
great majority of the dairies face more or less in an easterly 
direction, so that the dairyman, in coming out of his dairy in 
the morning, can see the sun; and where the dairy faces in 
a different direction he has to turn so as to salute with his 
face to the east. In the afternoon he salutes in the same 
direction as in the morning, so that, so far as the salutation 


1 Mrs. Leslie Milne, Zhe Home of SUV veetion iste niversy/ fe 2 0das 
an Eastern Clan (Oxford, 1924), pp. (London, 1906), pp. 38, 42, 98-105, 
256 sg. 448 sqg., 680 sg. 


638 WORSAIP OF THE SUN IN MODERN INDIA Ci. X1v 


is performed to the Sun, it would seem that reverence is 
paid rather to the place of sunrise than to the Sun itself.! 
According to Colonel W. E. Marshall, the Todas salaam to 
the rising and setting Sun (d¢7sh) and to the Moon (t2gga/i) 
at night, reciting the one form of prayer which they use on 
all devout occasions: it runs thus, “ May it be well with the 
male children, the men, the cows, the female calves, and 


every one”.” 


1W. H. R. Rivers, 7he (odas, Zravels amongst the Todas (london, 


pp. 94, 126, 128, 436. 1873)," pp. 7 ls 123: 
2 Lieut.-Colonel W. E. Marshall, 


CAVA Tay, 
THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN 


THE ancient religion of Japan is known as Shinto, or “the Shinto, the 
Way of the Gods”. It is essentially a worship of nature, Oe By, 
that is, of the material aspects of the physical world Japan, a 
personified as gods or goddesses. The view that it was *o"ship°! 
primarily a worship of ancestors, upon which the worship of 
nature was afterwards grafted,’ appears to be erroneous. It 
is rejected by two of our best modern authorities on Japanese 
religion, W. G. Aston and M. Revon. According to Aston, 
“ Shinto, which has been described as exclusively a cult of 
ancestors and deceased sovereigns, has in reality little of this 
element. It is in the main a worship of nature. The man- 
deities are of more recent origin and of minor importance”. 
Indeed, he holds that “the worship of ancestors is an 
importation from China and has no place in the older 
Shinto”.2 Similarly the French scholar, M. Michael Revon, 
while he admits that the worship of ancestors became the 
dominant feature of Shinto at a certain period, is of opinion 
that this cult of the dead was developed later than the 
worship of nature, and in proof of it he refers to the 
prominence given to spirits of nature in ancient Japanese 
ritual and annals.* This ancient worship of nature, which 
was no doubt in former times the national religion of Japan, 
has long been thrust into the background by Buddhism, the 

'W. E. Griffis, Zhe Religions of Hastings’ Lxcyclopaedia of Religion 
Japan (London, 1895), p. 88, ‘‘From and Ethics, xi. (Edinburgh, 1920) 
the emperor to the humblest believer, p. 463. 


the god-way is founded on ancestor 3 . . ; 

worship, and has had grafted upon its BOERS ARSE 

ritual system nature worship ”’. 4 Michael Revon, Ze Shinfoisme, i. 
2 W. G. Aston, ‘*Shinto”, in J. . (Paris,-1907) pp. 57 s¢. 


639 


The Sun- 
goddess, 
the most 
eminent of 
Japanese 
deities. 


Japanese 
names of 
the Sun- 
goddess. 


LHE WORSAIPVOP LHL SON IN AT aay CHAP. 


640 


lofty morality of which furnishes a striking contrast to the 
general absence of ethical teaching in Shinto,’ and therefore 
strengthens its appeal to a péople so intelligent and civilized 
as the Japanese. Yet the old faith still retains a certain 
hold on the mind of the people, manifesting itself particularly 
in that adoration of the Sun which appears to have been 
from the earliest times a salient feature of the national 
religion. The absence of a moral code in Shinto is acknow- 
ledged by modern native commentators, who account for it 
by the innate perfection of the Japanese nature, which 
renders such outward props of morality superfluous. It is only, 
they insinuate, the inferior races, such as the Chinese and 
Europeans, whose natural depravity requires from time to time 
to be corrected by the preaching of sages and reformers.” 

Of all the Shinto deities (Aaszzs) the most eminent is the 
Sun-goddess, the personification of the physical sun. She is 
described as the Ruler of Heaven and as unrivalled in dignity. 
She wears royal insignia, is surrounded by ministers, and is 
spoken of in terms appropriate to personages of sovereign 
rank. From her the Mikados claim to derive their descent 
and authority. Yet she is hardly what we understand by a 
Supreme Being. Her power does not extend to the sea and 
to the Land of Darkness (yom), the Japanese Hades. The 
commission to rule the Heaven was conferred on her by cher 
parents, and did not by any means convey despotic power. 
Important celestial matters are determined, not by her, but 
by a Council of the Gods. The heavenly constitution, like 
its earthly counterpart, on which no doubt it was modelled, 
is far from being an absolute monarchy.® 

The ordinary Japanese name of the Sun-goddess is 
Ama-terasu no Oho-kami, “the Heaven-shining Great Deity ”. 
European writers usually abridge it to Amma-terasu, which, 


1 W. G. Aston, ‘‘Shinto”, in J. prehensive word for deity in the 
Hastings’ LZucyclopaedia of Religion Japanese language ts kamz. Its proper 
and Ethics, xi. 469. meaning is ‘‘top” or- ‘‘above”, 


2 Basil Hall Chamberlain, 7hings 
Japanese * (London, 1902), p. 414. 

3 W.G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of 
the Gods (London, 1905), pp. 123 s¢.; 
td., ‘*Shinto”, in J. Hastings’ £Z7- 
cyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, xi, 
466. The commonest and most com- 


Applied to persons, human or divine, 
it signifies little more than ‘‘ superior ”. 
See W. G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of — 
the Gods, pp. 7-10; B. H. Chamberlain, 
Ko-ji-kt, Records of Ancient Matters, 
pp. xvii sg. (Zransactions of the Astatic 
Society of Japan, Supplement to vol. x.). 


XV THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN 641 


however, is a mere epithet, and as such is applied to other 
deities. She is also called Asma-terasu hiru-me, “ Heaven- 
shining Sun-female”, or, more briefly, Hzrume. Another of 
her titles is Ama-terasu mt oya, “ Heaven-shining august- 
parent’. In modern times the old title Asa-terasu no Oho- 
kam is little used, and is commonly replaced by its Chinese 
equivalent Zezshodazin. Partly under cover of a name 
which is less intelligible to the multitude, the tendency has 
increased to throw the solar nature of the goddess into the 
shade and to conceive of her simply as a general Providence 
at the expense of other divinities. In this way she has 
made a distinct advance to the dignity of a supreme 
monotheistic deity. Even in ancient times there was some 
recognition of the Sun-Goddess as a Providence who watched 
over human affairs, especially over the welfare of the 
Mikado and his government. She is said to have provided 
Jimmu, the first of the Mikados, with a Sun-crow to guide 
his army.' The solar character of the goddess having 
_become obscured, the people have personified the sun afresh 
under the names of WVzchz-rin sama, “ Sun-wheel-personage ”, 
and O ¢ento sama, “ August-heaven-path-personage”. To 
the lower class of Japanese at the present day, and especially 
to women and children, O ¢ento sama is the actual sun, 
conceived without sex and without myth, unencumbered by 
any formal cult, but looked up to as a moral being who 
rewards the good, punishes the wicked, and enforces oaths 
made in his name.” 

The material symbol or embodiment (shznxtaz) of the 
Sun-goddess, is a mirror, sometimes called the eight-hand- 
mirror (yata-kagamz) or the Sun-form-mirror. It is kept in 
a box to this day in the great shrine at Ise, which has been 
called the very heart of the ancient Japanese religion. The 
mirror is about eight inches in diameter. It is treated with 
the greatest care and reverence, and is even spoken of as if 
it were the Sun-goddess herself.? Religious honours are still 


1 W.G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of in J. Hastings’ Evcyclopaedia of Re- 


the Gods, pp. 124 sq. livton and Ethics, xi, 466, It is 
2 W. G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of | M. Revon who calls the temple at 
the Gods, p. 127. Tse ‘‘the very heart of the ancient 


3 W.G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of Japanese religion” (Le Shintoisme, 
the Gods, pp. 134 sg.; za, “‘Shinto”, i. 41). 
VOL. I itl: 


The sacred 
mirror the 
symbol of 
the Sun- 
goddess. 


The bird 
of the Sun- 
goddess. 


Royal 
princess 
dedicated 
to the 
service of 
the Sun- 
goddess. 


The Food- 
goddess, 
Uka 
Mochi. 


642 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN CHAP, 


paid to it or to its representative.’ Formerly the female 
attendants of the imperial palace used to offer rice, fish, 
cakes, cloth, and so forth at every new moon to the sacred 
mirror which represented the goddess. In the modern form 
of the worship the emperor himself does homage to the 
shrine which contains the symbols of divinity.’ 

The Sun-goddess was also provided with a bird as her 
messenger and attendant. In Japanese the bird is called 
yata-garasu, “eight-hand crow”. It is said to be borrowed 
from China, where it is called the Sun-crow or Golden Crow, 
and is described as a bird of a red colour and three claws, 
which roosts in the sun. Mention of this remarkable fowl 
occurs in a Chinese poem written in 314 B.C. As a symbol 
of the Sun it was wrought on the banners set up in front of 
the Imperial Palace on State occasions. This custom is 
known to go back to 700 A.D. and is probably much older.’ 

At the beginning of every reign an unmarried princess 
of the imperial blood used to be chosen by divination and 
consecrated to the service of the Sun-goddess at Ise. For 
three years before she took up her duties she went on the 
first day of every month to a sacred hall and worshipped 
towards the Great Shrine of Ise; this period of preparation 
was called the “three years’ purity ”.4 

Next to the Sun-goddess the most important, or at all 
events the most universally popular, deity of the Shinto 
pantheon is the Food-goddess, Uke-mochi ; the outer shrine 
at Ise is dedicated to her. At the present time daily 
offerings are made to the two goddesses at Ise. They 
consist of four cups of rice-beer (sake), sixteen saucers of 
rice and four of salt, besides fish, birds, fruits, seaweed, 
and vegetables.° According to Hirata, the Japanese theo- 
logian who worked for a revival of the Shinto religion in 
the first half of the nineteenth century, no flesh was offered 
in sacrifice to the Sun-goddess.® Clothing was formerly 


> W.G., Aston, Shinto, the Way of 5 W. G. Aston, Shinto, the Way o 


the Gods, p. 72. the Gods,- pp. 16%, 162, 210 07a 
2 W.G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of ‘*Shinto”, in J. Hastings’ Excyclo- 
the Gods, pp. 291 sg. paedia of Religion and Ethics, xi. 467. 
3 W.G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of 6 W. G, Aston, Shinto, the Way of 
the, Gods, p. 136. the Gods, p. 254. As to Hirata, who 


4 W.G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of lived from 1776 to 1843 A.D., see 7d, 
the Gods, pp. 205 sg. Pp s7 307. 


XV LHE WOKSHIP OF ‘THE SUN IN JAPAN. 643 


presented to the Sun-goddess at Ise twice a year, in the 
fourth and ninth months. Her shrine at Ise used to be 
rebuilt every twentieth year. A ‘special form of liturgy 
(zorito) was prescribed for the occasion.’ Many people go 

on pilgrimage to the shrines of the Sun-goddess and the pilgrim. 
Food-goddess at Ise. More than eleven thousand pilgrims eras 
have been known to pay their devotions at Ise on New the Sun. | 
Year's Day. Boys and even girls often run away from uber 
home and beg their way to Ise. This is regarded as a 
pardonable escapade. When an actual visit to a shrine is 
difficult or impossible, the worshipper may offer his homage 

from a distance. In some places special shrines are provided 

at which the deity graciously consents to accept this worship 

at a distance.” On the coast of Ise there is a famous spot 

to which pilgrims resort in order to worship the Sun as he 

rises over the distant Mount Fujiyama, the Olympus of 
Japan. There is a mark to indicate the proper direction 

in which the devotees should do obeisance to the orb of 
day. In the eastern wall of a private courtyard a round 

hole may occasionally be seen for the convenience of 
worshipping the morning sun. There is a modern custom 
called Sun-waiting (Aivmachz), which consists in keeping awake 

the whole night of the fifth day of the tenth month in order to 
worship the Sun at his rising. The rules of religious purity 

must be observed from the previous day. Many persons 
assemble at various open places in Tokio for the sake of 
worshipping the Sun on the first day of the year. This is 
called “the First Sunrise” (Lat sano hi no de)? ~The ordinary 
Japanese salutation to the rising Sun is to bow the head.' 

Among the places of pilgrimage are the tops of lofty pigrim- 
mountains, where the worshipper naturally feels himself es orship 
nearer to the heavenly gods. The great. sacred moun- the Sun on 
tain of Japan is Mount Fuji or Fujiyama, a volcano aba a 
very regular shape, like an inverted fan, more than 12,000 
feet high. Thousands of pilgrims ascend it annually, but 


1 W.G, Aston, Shinto, the Way of 3°W.G, Aston, Shznvto, the Way of 
the Gods, p. 287. the Gods, p, 128. 

2 W. G. Aston, Shizlo, the Way of 4W.G,. Aston, Shinto, the Way of 
the Gods, pp. 239 sy.;3 7d, ‘*Shinto”, the Gods, p. 208. 
in J. Hastings’ Arcyclopaedia of Re- 5 B. If. Chamberlain, Zines 
ligion and Ethics, xi. 468, Japanese * (London, 1902), pp. 189 99. 


Blessings 
expected 
of the Sun- 
goddess, 


TALO WORSHIP (OF TALE SONGUN RAT AGy CHAP. 


644 


only during two months of the year, from the fifteenth of 
July to the tenth of September. During the rest of the 
year, woe to the rash intruder who should dare to transgress 
the prescribed lines!* Another peak to which pilgrims 
resort is the lofty Mount Ontake, “the August Peak”. 
The mountain is an ancient volcano; sulphurous fumes still 
burst from crevices in the rocks. On the top Mr. Weston 
witnessed a band of white-robed pilgrims making their 
offerings at the shrine and then worshipping the Goddess of 
the Sun. It was dawn and streaks of golden light were 
stealing up into the azure sky. First of all the pilgrims 
clapped their hands to call the attention of the divinity to 
their prayers, and then broke into a series of chants of 
invocation. Mingled with the chants were repetitions of 
the prayer which is constantly heard on the lips of pilgrims 
as they toil up the slopes of a holy mountain: “May our 
six senses be pure, and may the weather on the honourable 
peak be fine!” Next followed a series of extraordinary 
pantomimic gestures called “seal-knots” (2% musabz). With 
intense energy and earnestness the devotees twisted and 
tied the fingers of both hands into the oddest combinations 
of knots, like the “cat’s cradles” made by children at play. | 
Each twist, each knot had its own special significance, being 
addressed to those invisible powers of evil from whose 
insidious machinations the pilgrim prayed to be delivered, 
grunting loudly as he made each cabalistic sign.” 

The Goddess of the Sun is not only looked up to with 
gratitude for the warmth and light which she sheds on the 
world ; she is also supposed to grant bodily health and 
success in business to her devotees, Further, she protects 
the country from invasion, and bestows many other blessings 
which have no obvious relation to her functions as a solar 
power.® Hence some modern writers, both Japanese and 


1 Walter Weston, Mountaineering the old ritual. In some ceremonies 


In more 


and Exploration in the Japanese Alps 
(London, 1896), p. 193. 

2 W. Weston, of. cet. pp. 279 sg. 
Elsewhere (p. 272) Mr. Weston men- 
tions that pilgrims are clad in cere- 
monial white. The clapping of hands 
was in ancient times a general token 
of respect in Japan. The number of 
hand-claps was minutely described in 


the number was thirty-two. 
modern times hand-clapping as a token 
of respect has been confined to divine 
worship. See W. G. Aston, Shzx/o, 
the Way of the Gods, p. 209. 


$W..G.. Aston, .4* Shinto in or 
Hastings’ “£xcyclopaedia of Religion 
and Ethics, xi. 464. 


XV THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN 645 


European, have inclined to hold that the Sun-goddess Ama- 
terasu is not so much the physical sun as a deity who rules 
and guides the sun. Thus the native theologian Hirata 
maintained that the Sun-goddess was not the Ruler of 
Heaven but the Ruler of the Sun;' and Mr. Basil Chamber- 
lain thinks that in the ancient Japanese mythology “the 
sun is ruled over by a goddess, the glorious Ama-terasu ”.” 
But such nice distinctions do not trouble the heads of simple- 
minded Sun-worshippers. To them the sun, the physical Japanese 
sum; is a’ god, and that-is an end-of it. Of this truth we set eat 
are assured again and again by good observers, who have Physical 
lived among the Japanese and seen them at their devotions. 
Thus Dr. W. E. Griffis, formerly of the Imperial University 
of Tokio, tells us that “to the common people the sun is 
actually a god, as none can doubt who sees them worshipping 
it morning and evening. The writer can never forget one 
of many similar scenes in Tokio, when late one afternoon 
O Tento Sama (the Sun-Lord of Heaven), which had been 
hidden behind clouds for a fortnight, shone out on the 
muddy streets. In a moment, as with the promptness of a 
military drill, scores of people rushed out of their houses and 
with faces westward, kneeling, squatting, began prayer and 
worship before the great luminary.” ® 

To the same effect M. Revon tells us that he questioned M. Revon 
several devout Shintoists in Japan as to their real thought °° 


F : ; : Japanese 
in this matter, and they assured him that in Ama-terasu, the deification 


Sun-goddess, they by no means worshipped a spirit control- seen 
ling the sun and more or less independent of it, but actually Sun. 
the real, material sun, the animate celestial body which gives 
light and warmth to men.* In the junks and steamers which 
ply on the Inner Sea there are always some pious passengers 
who do reverence to the rising or setting sun, and the boat- 
men are bound by custom thus to adore the great orb of day 
when he appears above the horizon in the east. So, too, 
where the railway runs in sight of the sacred Mount Fuji- 
yama, whether on the side of the sea or where the golden 
dolphins of the castle of Nagoya glitter in the morning or the 


1 W.G. Aston, Shinto, the Way of 3 W. E. Griffis, Zhe Religzons of 


the Gods, p. 124. Japan, p. 87. ; 
2 Basil Hall Chamberlain, 7/2725 4M. Revon, Le Shintoisme, i. 77; 


Japanese * (London, 1902), p. 435. note 3, 


Mythical 
origin of 
the Sun- 
goddess. 


646 LHE WORSATP.OF THE SUN INGALAM CHAP 


evening light, many passengers, looking out of the windows, 
pay their respects to the rising or the setting sun ; the third- 
class passengers are particularly assiduous in their devotions." 
In short, to adopt the words of M. Revon, “the Japanese people 
adore the Sun as a living god; the worship which they pay 
him is not vague and spiritual, it is direct and absolutely real, 
when, every morning, the glorious luminary rises in face of his 
worshipper, lighting up and warming all things, or at evening 
when he is about to plunge into the night. And such is the 
inward, instinctive faith of the whole religious public, from 
the artisan who, from the back of his dark shop, turns 
towards the bright dawn, claps his hands and recites piously 
his prayer to the goddess, up to the pilgrim who, on the 
summit of Mount Fujiyama, prostrates himself, with dazzled 
eyes, before the first golden shafts of light and worships the 
orb with forehead bowed down to the rocks.”* “For my 
part,” adds M. Revon, “I must confess that one morning 
on the summit of Fuji, perceiving myself alone in a scene 
which might have befitted the Last Judgment, faced by the 
radiant orb which seemed to me like the last living thing of 
creation, I had a lively illusion that it was a personal being ; 
and when, a moment afterwards, I saw pilgrims hasting from 
all sides to adore him, I thought their faith perfectly natural. 
If Herbert Spencer had been there, perhaps he would have 
abandoned his theory that the worship of the Sun sprang 
from the worship of the dead through a mistake about their 
posthumous names.” ° 

The ancient mythology of Japan relates the origin of the 
Sun-goddess as follows. Both of the two old native histories 
of Japan, the Kojzkz or “Records” and the Nzhongi or 
“Chronicles ”,* begin with describing a state of primeval 


1M. Revon, Le Shintoisme, i. 78, 


order and completed in 712 A.p._ It 
note 1, 


has been translated into English, with 


2M. Revon, Le Shintoisme, i. 77 sq. 

3M. Revon, Le Shintotsme, i. 78, 
note |, 

4 For our knowledge of ancient 
Japanese history and -mythology we 
are indebted mainly to two early 
Japanese works, the Aojzkz, or ‘* Re- 
cords of Ancient Matters”, and the 
Nihongt, or ‘*Chronicles of Japan”. 
The Aogjzki was compiled by Imperial 


a valuable introduction, by Mr. Basil 
Hall Chamberlain, and the translation 
has been published as a Supplement 
to the tenth volume of the 7vansactzons 
of the Astatic Society of Japan. ‘Yhe 
Nihongt has been translated into 
English by Mr. W. G. Aston, and 
the translation has been published as 
Supplement I. to the 7Zvamnsactions 
and Proceedings of the Japan Soctety, 


THE WORSHIP (OF THE SUN IN JAPAN 


XV 647 


chaos, in which Heaven and Earth were not yet separated 
from each other, but adhered together in a mass like an egg. 
In time the two elements parted from each other, the purer 
and lighter rising to form the Heaven, while the grosser and 
heavier sank to form the Earth. Thereafter Divine Beings 
were produced between them.’ Then followed seven genera- 
tions of gods, of whom the last were a brother and sister 
called Izanagi and Izanami. The name of the brother, 
Izanagi, has been interpreted ‘ Male who invites”, and the 
name of the sister Izanami, has been interpreted “ kemale 
who invites”, but this interpretation is doubtful. Be that 
as it may, the brother and sister appear to be personifications 
of the dual creative powers of the universe ; and as ideas so 
abstract are probably late, we may assume, with some 
likelihood, that the conception of this pair of creators 
originated long after that of the simpler and more concrete 
deities of nature, such as the gods of the Sun and Moon. 
At all events the brother and sister are said to have united 
in marriage, and by their union to have produced, first, the 
various islands of the Japanese Archipalego, and afterwards 
a brood of gods and goddesses, many of whom we should 
call personifications of the powers of nature, such as the 
Wind-Gods, the Sea-gods, the Gods of Mountains and 
Valleys, the God of Trees, and the Goddess of Food. The 
youngest born was the God of Fire, and in _ bringing 


language, and the traditional history 
of Ancient Japan, Indeed it is the 
earliest authentic connected literary 
product of that large division of the 


London, in two volumes (London, 
1896). The scope of the two works 
is the same, but the later book (the 
Nihongt, or ‘*Chronicles”), though 


composed only a few years after the 
Kojikt, is written in Chinese and 
under Chinese influence, which has 
deeply coloured the whole, omitting 
or rationalizing some. of the most 
childish and barbarous myths. At 
the same time the Vzhongz has an 
independent value of its own, in so far 
as the author has added to the original 
text many variants of the current myths 
which might otherwise have been lost. 
Nevertheless, the earlier work, the 
Kojtkt, or ‘* Records”, is the most 
important monument of early Japanese 
literature, ‘‘ because it has preserved 
for us more faithfully than any other 
book the mythology, the manners, the 


human race which has been variously 
denominated Turanian, Scythian, and 
Altaic, and it even precedes by at least 
a century the most ancient extant 
literary compositions of non-Aryan 
India. Soon after the date of its com- 
pilation, most of the salient features 
of distinctive Japanese nationality were 
buried under a superincumbent mass 
Ohmacnineserccuiturer .), ‘eee B11, 
Chamberlain, A’o-77-£2, or Records of 
Ancient Matters, Introduction, pp. i 
sgqg.; W. G. Aston, Shinto, the Way 
of the Gods, pp. 2 sq. 

1 B. H. Chamberlain, Ao-72-47, or 
Records of Ancient Malters, p. 43 
W. G. Aston, Wrhoneg7, i. 1 sg. 


Izanagiand 
Izanani, 
brother 
and sister, 
husband 
and wife. 


648 THE. WORSHIP OF THE SUNAN JAPAN CHAP. 


him into the world his mother expired, being burnt by 
the flames which emanated from the body of the infant. 
The dead So she passed away to the Land of Yomi, the Japanese 


ane Hades, the Land of the Dead. Her disconsolate husband 
by her — pursued her thither, and implored her to return, like Orpheus 
cain seeking to recall his lost Eurydice. But sadly she said, “ My 


is ee lord and husband, why is thy coming so late? I have 
Ree aE) already eaten of the cooking-furnace of Yomi. But I am 
about to lie down to rest. Look not on me.” But look at 


her he did by the light of a torch made from the tooth of a 
comb which he wore in his hair. What he saw was dreadful. 
For her body was already falling into putrefaction : maggots 
swarmed over it; and the eight Thunder-gods had been 
generated in her members. Horrified at the spectacle he 
turned and fled, pursued by the Infernal Hags whom his 
dead wife, enraged at the shame of her exposure, sent after 
him to slay him. As he fled he threw down first his comb 
and then his head-dress to delay his pursuers. The comb 
was changed into bamboo-shoots, which the Hags stopped to 
devour. The head-dress was changed into grapes, and 
again the dreadful beings tarried to pick them up. When 
he reached the Even Pass of Yomi, he found three peaches 
growing there, and plucking them he hurled them at his 
pursuers, who turned 4nd fled back. But at the same Even 
Pass of Yomi the fugitive was overtaken by his dead wife 
herself, IZanami. He took a great rock and blocked up the 
pass: he pronounced the words of divorce: he said, “Come 
no farther” ; and he threw down his staff, his garments, and 
his shoes. So husband and wife parted for ever.’ 


Purification On returning from this vain attempt to recover his lost 
of Izanagi °3 : 3 
Reece spouse, Izanagi’s first care was to bathe in a river or the sea 


return from in order to purify himself from the pollution which he had 
tre Wand f contracted in the Land of the Dead. As he did so, fresh 
deities were born from each article of clothing that he threw 
down beside the water, and also from each part of his 
person. For example, one deity was produced from his 


august girdle, another from his august trousers, and a third 


1B. H. Chamberlain, Ko-j2-k2, or Aston, Mihongi, i. § sgg., 21-25; zd., 
Records of Anctent Matters, pp. xlv Shinto, the Way of the Gods, pp. 85- 
5q., 16 599., 29 59., 34-39; W. G. 94, 169-172. 


XV THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN 649 


from his august hat. The Sun-goddess was born when he The Sun- 
washed his august left eye; the Moon-god was born when S005 
he washed his august right eye, and a god called Susa-no- the left eye 
Wo, or the Impetuous Male, was born when he washed his ot aaa 
august nose. To the Sun-goddess her father assigned the 

heaven to rule over, to the Moon-god he gave dominion 

over the night, and to the Impetuous Male God he com- 

mitted the kingdom of the sea. But the Impetuous Male, 

whom modern scholars variously interpret as a personification 

of the rain-storm and so forth, was not content with his lot ; 

he did not accept the kingdom of the sea, but blubbered and 

wept till his beard reached the pit of his stomach. He wept 

till the green mountains were withered and all the rivers and 

seas, curiously enough, dried up. When his father, exasperated 

at this exuberance of sorrow, asked him testily what he meant 

by it, his hopeful offspring replied, “I wail because I wish to 

depart to the land of my deceased mother, to the Nether 
Distant Land”. Then the great God his father was very 

wroth, and forthwith expelled him with a divine expulsion.’ 

But before the Impetuous Male Deity went down to the Ascent 
Nether Land, he begged to be allowed to ascend for a brief Tae 
space to heaven, there to meet his elder sister the Sun- Male Deity 
goddess once more, after which he promised to depart for °° 7s" 


and his 
ever. Leave was granted him, and up he went accordingly. interview 


But such was the fierceness and impetuosity of his nature that eae 
at his going there was a commotion in the sea, the rivers 5un- 
trembled, and the hills and mountains groaned aloud. His caaeue 
sister, who knew his violence and wickedness, was startled, 

and her countenance was changed at the sound of his coming. 

She said: to herself, “Is my younger brother coming with 

good intentions? I think it must be his purpose to rob me 

of my kingdom. By the charge which our parents gave to 

their children, each of us has his own allotted limits. Why, 
therefore, does he reject the kingdom to which he should 
proceed, and make bold to come spying here?” So she 
bound up her hair into knots, and tied up her skirts into the 

form of trousers. She slung her quivers on her back: she 


1B, H. Chamberlain, o-72-k2, or 26-28; zd., Shinto, the Way of the 
Records of Ancient Matters, pp. xlvi, Gods, pp. 95, 137 sgqg.; M. Revon, 
39-45; W. G. Aston, Mrhong?, i. Le Shintotsme, i. 62 sgq. 


Covenant 
of the Sun- 
goddess 
with the 
Impetuous 
Male Deity 
at the River 
of Heaven. 


650 THE WORSTTIP. OF THE SONIN GALAN CHAP. 


drew a dread loud-sounding elbow-pad on her lower arm: 
she gripped her sword hilt: she stamped on the hard earth 
of the courtyard: she sank her thighs into it as if had been 
snow: she kicked it in all directions. Thus prepared for 
the worst, she uttered a mighty cry of deflance, and questioned 
her younger brother, the Impetuous Male Deity, in a straight- 
forward manner. He soothed her agitation, he allayed her 
suspicions. He said, “From the beginning my heart has 
not been black. But as in obedience to the stern behest of 
our parents, I am about to proceed for ever to the Nether 
Land, how could I bear to depart without having seen face 
to face thee, my elder sister? It is for this reason that I 
have traversed on foot the clouds and mists and have come 
hither from afar. Iam surprised that my elder sister should, 
on the contrary, put on so stern a countenance.” 

Touched at this display of family affection, she answered, 
“If this be so, how wilt thou make evident the redness of 
thy heart?” He answered and said, “ Let us, I pray thee, 
make an oath together. Bound by this oath, we shall surely 
produce children.” So they swore to each other, standing 
on opposite banks of the calm River of Heaven, which 
mortals call the Milky Way. She asked him for his sword, 
whereof the jewels made a jingling sound: she broke it into 
three pieces, she brandished them,.she dipped them in 
the Pool of Heaven: she crunched them with her teeth 
crunchingly, and blew them away, and from the true mists of 
her breath gods were born. And he asked his sister for the 
string of jewels that was twined in her august hair: he 
brandished it with a jingling sound: he dipped it in the 
Pool of Heaven, and having crunchingly crunched the jewels 
between his teeth, he blew them away, and from the true 
mist of his breath were gods produced. Thus were eight 
divine children born into the world. Through one of them, 
who rejoiced in the euphonious name of Masa-ya-a-katsu- 
kachi-haya-hi-ama-no-oshi-ho-mi-mi, the Mikados trace their 
descent from the Sun-goddess.' 

After that, for reasons which it is no longer possible to 


1B. H. Chamberlain, 40-77-47, or 33 sgg.; td., Shinto, the Way of the 
Records of Anctent Matters, pp. 45 Gods, pp. 96 sy.; M. Revon, Le 
sgg.; W. G. Aston, Mehong?, i.  Shintotsme, i, 65 sy. 


XV THEVWORSHIP OF THE SUN: IN JAPAN 651 


ascertain, the conduct of the Impetuous Male Deity became Outrageous 
in the highest degree rude and unseemly. It chanced that Peviow" 
the Sun-goddess had laid out rice-fields both of the long Impetuous 
and of the narrow sort. Well, when the seed was sown in Mies 
spring, what did the Impetuous Male Deity do but break 

down the fences and fill up the ditches; and when autumn 

came, the abandoned wretch let loose the heavenly piebald 

colts and made them to lie down in the midst of the rice- 

fields. Worse than that, when the Sun-goddess was about 

to celebrate the festival of first-fruits, he made his way into 

the palace and defiled it in a disgusting manner. All this 

the Sun- goddess bore with admirable patience, and even 

found excuses for her wayward brother’s misconduct. En- 
couraged, perhaps, by her leniency, he proceeded to greater 
excesses than ever. While the Sun-goddess sat in her 
weaving-hall, surrounded by her handmaids plying their 

looms and weaving the august garments of the gods, the 
miscreant took a heavenly piebald horse, flayed it, beginning 

-at the tail, and, having broken a hole in the roof of the 
weaving-hall, he dropped the flayed horse, no longer piebald, 

into the room. Down it crashed into the midst of the 
handmaids, who, in their terror, injured themselves with their 
shuttles and died of the injury on the spot. The patience of 

the goddess was exhausted by this last unmanly outrage. She The Sun- 
straightway entered the Rock-cave of Heaven, and bolting Renae 
the door behind her dwelt there in sullen seclusion. Deserted the Rock- 
by the Sun-goddess, the world was now plunged in darkness, replete 
which threatened to be eternal: the cheerful alternation of leaving the 
day and night ceased: instead, night reigned perpetually. Geren 
The gods naturally were much alarmed. They gathered in 

their myriads by the Calm River of Heaven and considered 

what was to be done in this emergency, and how they could 

entice the sulky goddess from the cave. They resorted to 

the most approved modes of divination, by consulting the 
shoulder-blade of a stag and by stripping off the bark from 

a cherry-tree. They assembled the long-singing birds of 

night, by which we are to understand the barndoor fowls, 

and caused them to sing in chorus at the door of the cave. 

But it was all in vain. The Sun-goddess turned a deaf ear to 

their melodious voices, They caused the Smith of Heaven 


How 

the Sun- 
goddess 
was lured 
from the 
cave and 
light was 
restored to 
the world. 


652 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN CHAP. 


to make a mirror, an eight-hand mirror. They pulled up 
by its roots a true Cleyera japonica’ with five hundred 
branches. They hung a string of five hundred jewels to 
its upper branches, and the mirror to its middle branches, 
while on its lower boughs they hung blue soft offerings and 
white soft offerings. Then the gods, and particularly the 
white August Heavenly-Beckoning-Ancestor-Lord, prayerfully 
recited grand liturgies. But the heart of the angry goddess 
was still not moved: she remained silent in the cave: the 
bolt did not grate in its socket: the door did not creak on 
its hinges. As a last resource, one of the goddesses, by 
name August Heavenly-Alarming-Female, rigged herself out 
in a sash of club-moss and a head-dress of spindle-tree, with 
a posy of bamboo grass in her hands. Thus arrayed she 
turned a tub upside down and danced on the top of it. As 
she bounced about and stamped on the improvised sounding- 
board, High Heaven shook, and the myriads of gods roared 
with laughter. The Sun-goddess in the cave heard the 
laughter. Her curiosity was excited. She cautiously set 
the door ajar and peeped out. Two of the gods now pushed 
forward the mirror and respectfully showed it to the goddess. 
She gazed on it in astonishment and edged her way a little 
farther out. Thereupon one of the gods, by name the 
Heavenly Hand-Strength-Male-Deity, who had artfully con- 
cealed himself behind the door, pounced on her, took her 
august hand, and drew her forth. So the plain of High 
Heaven and the Central Land of Reed-plains (that is, Japan), 
grew light again. The gods were overjoyed, and gleefully 
they cried aloud, “O how delightful it is again to see each 
others’ faces!” They besought her not to return into the cave. 
But as for the Impetuous Male Deity, who had done all the 
mischief, the gods imposed on him a fine of a thousand 
tables of offerings, and they shaved his beard, plucked out the 
nails of his fingers ‘and toes, and expelled him with a divine 
expulsion.” On the other hand, the goddess, who by her 


1 In Japanese saka-hi. -It is com- Shinto, the Way of the Gods, pp. 96- 
monly planted in the precincts of 101; M. Revon, Le Shéntotsme, i. 
Shinto temples. 66-71; G. Kato and H. Hoshino, 

Imbe-no-Htronart’s Kogoshut, or Glean- 

2 B. H. Chamberlain, Xo-77-h2, or ings from Ancient Stories, translated 
Records of Ancient Matters, pp. 52-59; with an Introduction and Notes 
W. G. Aston, Vzhongi, i. 40-45; 7a, (Sanseido, 1924), pp. 18-23. 


XV THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN 653 


dance had lured the Sun-goddess from the darksome cave, 
became the ancestress of the inspired diviners, who, in after 
ages, played an important part’in the ceremony of Quieting 
the Imperial Spirit.’ 

This strange story is the kernel of the mythical lore The story 
of Japan. From it were deduced some of the principal *™% 
ceremonies of the Shinto religion, as they were practised eclipse. 
at the Mikado’s court.” Substantially the story would seem 
to be a mythical explanation of a solar eclipse.° 

Not less barbarous is the tale told in the NVzAongz to Myth to 
explain why the sun and moon do not shine together. Tea ae 
is said that when the Sun-goddess Ama-terasu had been Spay. 
raised by her divine father to heaven, she heard that the jot shine 
Goddess of Food, Uke-mochi, was in the Central Land of together. 
Reed-plains, that is, in Japan; so she sent her brother the 
Moon-god, Tsuki-yomi, to wait upon her. The Moon-god 
descended to earth and paid a visit to the Goddess of Food, 
who prepared to receive him with lavish hospitality. For 
this purpose she turned her head towards the land, and from 
her mouth she spewed out boiled rice: she faced the sea, 
and from her mouth she vomited things broad of fin and 
things narrow of fin: she looked towards the mountains, 
and from her mouth she disgorged things rough of hair and 
things soft of hair. All these dainties, the fruit of her 
vomit, she set out on one hundred tables for the enter- 
tainment of the Moon-god. But far from accepting the 
proffered hospitality, the Moon-god flushed with anger and 
exclaimed, “Filthy! Nasty! That thou shouldst dare to 
feed me with things disgorged from thy mouth!” With that 
he drew his sword and slew the Goddess of Food. Then 
he returned to heaven and reported everything to the Sun- 
goddess But she was exceedingly angry and said, “ Thou 
art a wicked deity! I may not see thee face to face.” So 
the Sun-goddess and the Moon-god were separated by one 
day and one night and dwelt apart. Such is the real 
reason for the separation of Sun and Moon. 


1 G. Kato and H. Hoshino, of, cé?, 4W. G. Aston, Mehongi, i. 32. 
ures The passage is also translated by 
2 W. G. Aston, Shzzto, the Way of Mr. B. H. Chamberlain, A’0-72-hz, or 
the Gods, p. 101. Records of Ancient Matters, Introduc- 


3 This is the interpretation of M. tion, p. xxiii, note”, Compare M, 
Revon, Le Shintoisme, i, 67, 69. Revon, Le Shintotsme, i. 32 5g. 


Sun- 
worship 
among the 
Ainos of 
Japan. 


that the Aino adores.? 


654 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN JAPAN “Chany, 


The barbarous Ainos, the aboriginal inhabitants of 
Japan, reckon the Sun and the Moon among their gods, 
but assign them only a subordinate place in their pantheon.' 
Yet we read that in Aino theology “the deity who is 
supposed to hold the most important office next the great 
Creator of all may be said to be the goddess of the sun, 
for she is conceived of as being the special. ruler of the 
sood things God has made and fixed in the universe ”.” 
However, we are informed by the same authority that 
the Ainos suppose the sun to be rather the vehicle of 


the goddess than the goddess herself; she rules it, she 
resides in it, her brightness shines through it, and it 
is her glory, not the splendour of the physical sun, 


When the Sun is eclipsed, the 
Ainos think that the deity is fainting or dying, and they 
throw water into the air to revive him, just as, for the same 
purpose, they squirt water into the face of a swooning or 
dying person.* While most Ainos speak of the Sun in the 
feminine gender, some of them look on him as a male and 
the Moon as a female, his wife. Vhey say that the male is 
appointed to do his work by day and the female by night. 
The divine Sun has the brightest and best clothes to wear, 
and that is why he shines so clearly. His garments con- 
sist of white embroidery, and he has a larger body than 
his wife. The Moon is like a round cake made of millet, 
and is clothed in dark and wide garments worn one over 
the other, as anybody can see for himself by looking at her. 
When the Moon is invisible, it is because she has gone to 
visit her husband. But among the Ainos persons who 
actually worship the Sun and Moon are few in number.® 
Such worship as they pay to the luminaries appears to 
consist in pouring libations of rice-beer, with waving of 
bowls and hands, but without any spiritual act of deprecation 
or supplication.® 


1 B. Scheube, **‘ Die Ainos”, AZz¢- 
theilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft 
6. S. und S,-Ostastens (Yokohama), Heft 
Exist? Lage glee cui tCheach, ssl De 
Ainos of Yezo, Japan”, Swzthsontan 
Institution, Report of the National 
Aluseum for 1890 (Washington, 1892), 


Pp. 472. 


2 J. Batchelor, 7ke Ainu and their 
folk-lore (London, 1901), p. 63. 

3 J. Batchelor, of. c7t. pp. 63 sg. 

4 J. Batchelor, of. ct. pp. 64 sq. 

6 J. Batchelor, of. cz¢. pp. 63, 67. 


8 Isabella L. Bird, Unheaten Tracks 
wn Japan (London, 1911), p. 274. 


da Pied at 8 PAs G8 
TILE WORSHIP OF TITE SUN IN INDONESIA 


THE worship of the Sun appears for the most part to be General 


° elt ay : 
absent among the Malays and the other races who inhabit */C""" 


the Malay Peninsula and the great region known as worship in 
Indonesia or the Indian Archipelago. We are told that etenine 
among the deities of the Malay pantheon the White The White 
Divinity, who dwells in the Sun, and the Black Divinity, the Matas 
who dwells in the Moon, are of some importance, but 
nothing is said of any worship paid to them. The Malays 

also believe in a Yellow Divinity who dwells in the Yellow 
Sunset-glow ; but they deem the sunset-glow most dangerous, 

and when they see it they try to put it out by spitting 

water towards it, which can hardly be regarded as a form 

of worship.’ The Semangs, a primitive aboriginal tribe of The Sun 


the Malay Peninsula, are said to worship the Sun, but the eae oe 


statement appears to be inaccurate.” However, they are Semangs 


reported to personify the Sun as a female with an actual we 


; insulz 
1W, W. Skeat, JAlalay Magic and North America, they adore Hina ein 


(London, 1900), pp. 92 sg. superior power, not in temples made pataks of 
with hands, not in the form of graven, Sumatra. 
2 W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, sculptured, or painted images, but 
Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula through the medium of one of the 
(London, 1906), 11,292. The authors greatest and most splendid of his 
quote Newbold as the authority for apparent created works—the Sun— 
the statement, but I do not find the _ the Baal of the Chaldeans—the Mithras 
statement in the passage to which they of the Persians—and the Belphegor of 
refer, But speaking of the wild tribes the Moabites”. See T. J. Newbold, 
of the Malay Peninsula in general, Polztical and Statistical Account of the 
Newbold affirms that most of them Sritish Settlements tn the Straits of 
*‘ possess only faint glimmering ideas Malacca (London, 1839), ii. 385. But 
respecting the existence of a Supreme little weight can be attached to this 
Being ; but with the savages of Tartary vague and rhetorical statement. 


655 


Worship of 


the Sun 
in Timor 
and the 
adjoining 
islands. 


Worship 
of spirits 
(v22¢) in 
the Indian 
Archi- 
pelago. 


656 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN [N INDONESIA -cHar. 


human figure, who is married to a husband called Ag-ag or 
the Crow.' Such a personification is at least a step in the 
direction of deification. Again, of the Bataks, a people in 
the interior of Sumatra, who have always maintained their 
political and religious independence against the rising tide 
of Mohammedanism, we are told that “they know nothing 
of a worship of nature in the proper sense of the word. 
Sun, moon, and stars were created by Debata, but are not 
worshipped. The powers of nature are certainly feared, 
but not adored.”* However, the Bataks conceive of the 
sun and moon as living persons, who sometimes wage war 
on each other.® But here, again, personification is not 
worship, though it may be a step towards it. 

However, a definite worship of the Sun is reported to be 
practised in a group of islands, of which Timor is much the 
largest and most important, situated in the south-eastern part 
of the Indian Archipelago, though even there the worship 
would seem to be not highly developed. In this respect the 
religion of the Timoreese and their neighbours differs not- 
ably from the religion of the other peoples of the Indian 
Archipelago.’ As.a rule, the religions of the pagan peoples 
of the Archipelago conform to a single type, being based on 
a faith in spirits of nature and souls of the dead, both of 
which classes of spiritual beings are believed to be endowed 
with the power of benefiting or injuring mankind ; both are 
accordingly feared and propitiated. The names for these 
formidable and worshipful beings vary in different parts of 
the Archipelago. The general name for both is xztuz, which 
is widely diffused among the islands, though in some of them 
it is confined to the spirits of the dead, while in others it is 
applied by preference to the spirits of nature. Fear of both 


1 W. W. Skeat and C, O. Blagden, variations, in other parts of the 
Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, Indian Archipelago. See A.C. Kruijt, 
li, 202, ‘*Indonesians ”, in J. Hastings’ £7- 

2 J. Warneck, Die Religion der  cyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vii, 
Batak (Leipzig, 1909), pp. I, 125. 249 sg. 
Debata, the Batak name for God, CaN) eee 
is apparently the Hindoo Devata, Ps J. Mp Die Religion der 
‘‘godling”, a diminutive of Deva, Boe Dea 
‘©God”, » See’ J.. Warneck, of. cz¢, 4G, A. Wilken, Handletding voor 
p. 1; W. Crooke, Popular Religion de vergelijkende Volkenkunde van 
and Folk-lore of Northern India, i. Nederlandsch-Indié (Leyden, 1893), 
3 sg. The same name occurs, with pp. 625 sg. 


XVI PiLeViOtweiiad Orel dit SUN TN TNOONESTA. 657 


sorts of spirits is the fundamental motive of the religion and 
finds expression in a complicated ritual.’ 

In its essential features the religion of the Timoreese Worship of 
does not diverge from this general type. It is mainly "Ss" 
concerned with the spirits of the dead and the spirits of 
nature, especially with the spirits of earth (wz¢7), because 
these mighty beings are supposed to exercise far greater 
influence on human affairs than the celestial deities, and 
consequently far more offerings are made to them. But 
besides these lower spirits the Timoreese recognize the 
existence of certain higher divinities, and this recognition 
constitutes the distinctive feature of their religion. Amongst Worship ot 
these higher divinities the most exalted is Usi-Neno, whose eat 
name means “Lord Sun”, from uws¢ “lord” and neno “sun”. Neno) and 
It does not mean “ Lord of the Sun”, which would be Neno- Smt E 
Usi. Thus Usi-Neno is a direct personification and deifi- Atu). 
cation of the physical sun; he is not simply a god or 
spirit who resides in the sun and regulates its operations. 

He is conceived as the male principle, but as too exalted to 
meddle much with terrestrial affairs. Next to him in rank 
is Usi-Afu, whose name means “Lady Earth”. She is thus 
the physical earth personified as a goddess, the wife of the 
Lord Sun. From their union the whole creation is thought 
to have originated, and it is their union which still imparts 
fertility and growth to every living thing. The Earth- Sacrifices 
goddess receives, along with the other earth-spirits, more ee 
sacrifices than are offered to the Sun-god ; indeed, apart from 
certain special rites, the Sun-god appears to be worshipped 
with a great sacrifice only once a year, at the end of the 
harvest. At that festival his wife, the Earth-goddess, is not 
forgotten, but her share of the offerings is small, consisting 
only of a few grains of rice and maize thrown on the ground. 
But at other times she, like her husband, receives bloody 
sacrifices of fowls, goats, pigs, and buffaloes. Horses are 
sacrificed to the Sun-god alone, but such sacrifices appear to 
be rare. The victims offered to the Sun-god must be male 
and of a white or red colour; the victims offered to the 


1 J. Warneck, Dee Religion der kunde van, Nederlandsch-[ndté, pp. 
Batak, pp. 1-3; G. A. Wilken, Hand- 544 599., 554, 624 sg. 
lecding voor de vergelijkende Volken- 


VOL. I 2U 


Chiefs 

in Timor 
called Sons 
of the Sun. 


658 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONESIA Chav. 


Earth - goddess must be female; according to one account 
their colour is indifferent, but according to other writers the 
victims destined for the Earth-goddess and the other earth- 
spirits must be black.’ It is said that the people may not 
directly invoke the Sun-god and implore his blessing ; the 
ancestral spirits (#z¢) are thought to be the indispensable 
intermediaries between the great god and men; it is they 
who are charged with the duty of presenting the prayers of 
mortals to Usi-Neno and acting as their advocates with him ; 
hence to induce them to use their good offices it is customary 
from time to time to offer sacrifices on their graves.” One 
of our authorities for Sun-worship in Timor says nothing 
about the Earth-goddess Usi-Afu, but does mention a 
certain Usi-Paha, “lord of the Earth”, whom he classes 
among the evil spirits. On the other hand, he tells us that 
the Timoreese worship the Moon as a goddess, whom they 
call Funan and regard as the only and eternal consort of the 
Sun-god.. Such inconsistencies may be due to the imperfect 
information of our authorities ; but more probably, perhaps, 
they are inherent in the vague and unsystematic thinking of 
the natives themselves. In Timor some chiefs of distinction 
and authority bear the honourable title of Wexoh-ana or Neno- 
o-dn, “Son of the Sun”.* If it rains too much or threatens 


and Wilken, .S. Miiller describes the 
worship of the Sun-god Usi-Neno, but 


1 J. S. G, Gramberg, ‘* Een maand 
in de binnenlanden van. Timor”, 


Verhandelingen van het Batarviaasch 
Genootschap van Kunsten en Welen- 
schappen, xxxvi, (1872) pp. 206-209 ; 
S. Miiller, ezse en Ondersoehingen 
an den Indischen Archipel (Amsterdam, 
1857), il. 261-263; A. Bastian, /rdo- 
mesten, il, Zitmor und wumiliegende 
Jnseln (Berlin, 1885), pp. 1 sg.3 H. 
Zondervan, ‘‘ Timor ende Timoreezen”, 
Tijdschrift van het Nederlandsch 
Aardrijkskundiy Genootschap, Tweede 
Serie, v. Afdeeling: Meer uitgebreide 
artikelen (Leyden, 1888), pp. 397-399, 
403 sg.3 G. A, Wilken, Handleiding 
voor de vergelijkende Volkenkunde van 
Nederlandsch-Indté, pp. 624-626 ; id., 
** Tet animisme bij den volken van den 
Indischen Archipel”, Verspretde Ge- 
schriften (The Hague, 1912), iii, 173 5g. 
Our principal authority is Gramberg ; 
his evidence is reproduced by Zondervan 


not that of the Earth-goddess Usi-Afu, 
2S. Miiller, Rezzer en Onderzoehingen 
in den Indischen Archipel, ii, 261. 

3S. Miiller, of. cé#. “ii. 262. A 
similar statement as to the Moon- 
goddess (Funan) and her relation to 
the Sun in Timor is made by A, Bastian 
(/ndonesten, 11, Timor und umliegende — 
Inseln, p. 1), but he may be copying 
S. Miiller. 

4 J. S. G.<Gramberg, of. czt. p, 
185; J. G. F. Riedel, ‘* Prohibitieve 
teekens en tatuage-vormen op het 
eiland Timor”, 72dschrift van het 
Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten 
en Wetenschappen, xlix, (Batavia, 1907) 
p. § (separate reprint), Compare A. 
Bastian, J/ndonesten, ii. Timor. und 
umiliegende Inseln, p. 8, who gives as 
the title Mesa-Anak, ‘* Children of the 
Sun”. 


XVI LAER IVONSAIP OR THE’ SUN IN-INDONESTA 659 


to rain when dry weather is wanted, the Timoreese sacrifice 
a white or red pig to obtain sunshine ; but if they desire to 
procure rain, they sacrifice a black pig. Probably, though 
our chief authority does not say so,' the white or red pig is 
sacrificed to the Sun-god and the black pig to the Earth- 
goddess.” In any case the colour of the victim is no doubt 
adapted to the object in view, the white or red answering to 
the brightness of sunshine, and the black to the darkness of 
rain-clouds. Such an adaptation is common in ceremonies 
intended to procure sunshine or rain; it is based on the 
principle of sympathetic or imitative magic.’ 

While the elements of Sun-worship appear thus to exist 
in Timor, it is significant of the variety of religious beliefs 
prevalent in these islands, that in the neighbouring island of 
Sumba no worship is paid to the sun, moon, and stars, though 
the people believe in a god who lives above the clouds ; they 
call him Umbu Walu Mendoku, which means “ the Lord who 
makes everything”, but they do not worship him directly.’ 

The natives of Rotti, an island to the south-west of 
Timor, believe in the existence of certain invisible beings, 
some kindly, some malignant, endowed with mysterious 
powers, to whose action they ascribe every event that 
happens to them in life, whether it be good or bad fortune, 
joy or sorrow, prosperity or adversity. Their chief deity 1s 
called Mane-tua-lai, which is thought to mean “Great Lord 
of Heaven” or simply “ Heavenly Lord”. Some people 
hold that this great divinity has his seat in the Sun (/edo/) ; 
but others, and indeed the majority, are of opinion that he 
dwells in the moon (u/ak). From him, even should he not 
be propitiated by sacrifices, men have nothing to fear : still 
out of simple gratitude it behoves them now and then, after a 
successful undertaking, to offer to the deity a sacrifice, which 
must always consist of white victims, whether fowls, sheep, 
or what not. But at such ceremonies the name of the 


1 J. S. G. Gramberg, of. c#¢. p. 200. 

2 This is expressly affirmed by IH. 
Zondervan (of. cz. pp. 403 sg.), whose 
account, however, appears to be based 
on that of Gramberg. 

3 For examples see Zhe Golden 
Bough, Part I. The Magic Art and 


the Evolution of Kings, 1, 290 sqq. 
4S. Roos, ‘ Bijdragen tot de Kennis 
van Taal, Land en Volk of het eiland 
Soemba”, Verhandelingen van het 
Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten 
en Wetenschappen, xxxvi, (1872) pp. 


59 59. 


Sacrifices 
for sun- 
shine 

or rain. 


Absence 
of Sun- 
worship in 
Sunmba. 


Doubtful 
worship of 
the Sun in 
Rotti. 


660 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONESTA cua. 


divinity may not be uttered ; he is too lofty and too awful 
a being for his name to be profaned by human lips.' 
Worship of The inhabitants of Solor, an island to the north-west of 
Aue aa Timor, profess Mohammedanism, but retain many heathen- 
Earth in ish superstitions. They speak, indeed, of Allah, the great 
Soler. invisible God, who created everything and dwells in the sky ; 
but that does not prevent them from invoking also the Sun 
(Rarak), the Moon (Wudan), and the Earth (Zanah) and 
making offerings to them on special occasions. They believe 
that the ghosts of the first human pair, by name Nuba and 
Nara, still roam the earth, haunt old fig-trees, the clefts of 
rocks and so forth, and transmit the petitions of mortals 
to the higher gods, supporting them by their intercession.” 
Doubtful In Wetar, an island to the north of Timor, the people 
wors'P °F recognize a deity whom they call the Great Lord or the 
Wetar. Ancient up above (Wawaki or IVawahakz), who dwells in the 
sun (/e/o) or in the vault of heaven, and represents the male 
principle as distinct from the female principle, which they 
identify with the earth (vae or vaa). Their ideas of him are 
vague, but they pray and sacrifice to him‘in sickness or after 
an evil dream and on other occasions.° 
Worship of To the east of Timor stretches an archipelago, or rather 
Hager series of small archipelagos, including the Leti, Sermata, 
nameof Babar, and Timorlaut groups of islands. The pagan in- 
Dee * habitants of all these islands worship the Sun as their highest 
inLeti, deity under the title of Upulero or Upulera, that is, Lord Sun. 
zene ca In the Timorlaut Islands he is also known as Dudilaa. His 
Timorlaut. worshippers regard him as a male principle who fertilizes the 
Earth or female principle, who in the Leti Islands. is called 
Upunusa or Grandmother Earth. No images are made of 
the Sun-god, but he is worshipped under the form of a lamp 
made of coco-nut leaves; which may be seen everywhere 
hanging on the houses and on the branches of the sacred 


fig-trees, Under these trees lies a large flat stone which 
1S. Miiller, Rezsenen Onderzoeckingen ous gods and spirits who are reveréd 


in den Indischen Archifel, ii, 272 sg. or feared in Rotti. He tells us that 
As to the meaning of the name  /az means heaven or the sky, 


AMane-tua-lat, compare G, Heijmering, 2S. Miiller, Rezzen cn Onderzoekingen 
**Zeden en gewoonten op het eiland = 7x den Indischen Archipel, ii, 285 sq. 
Rottie”, Z2jaschrift voor Nederlandsch 3.J. G. F. Riedel, De sluikeen 


Indie, 1844, vol. i, 86 sgg., who gives kroeshartve svassen tusschen Selebes en 
a fuller list (pp. 85 sgg.) of the numer- Papzta (The Hague, 1886), p. 436. 


f+ 


XVI THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONESIA 661 


serves as an altar. On it the heads of slain foes were 

and are still placed in some of the islands. Once a year, 

at the commencement of the rainy season, when the east 
monsoon begins to blow, a great festival, called poreka, Marriage 
poreke, or porka, and lasting usually a month, is held a es 
in honour of the Sun-god.’ At that time the deity is ata great 
believed to descend into the sacred fig-tree in order to pean 
fertilize Grandmother Earth. To facilitate his descent, a 
ladder, with seven or ten rungs and adorned with carved 
figures of cocks, is considerately placed at his disposal under 

the tree ; and in the Babar archipelago, to attract his atten- 

tion, blasts are blown on a triton-shell. Pigs and dogs are 
sacrificed in profusion. Men and women alike indulge in a 
saturnalia ; and the mystic union of the Sun and the Earth 

is dramatically represented in public, amid song and dance, 

by the real union of the sexes under the tree. The object of 

the festival, we are told, is to procure rain, plenty of food and 

drink, abundance of cattle and children, and riches from 
Grandfather Sun. The arrangements for the festival are 

made by a man and woman, the ministers of the local deities 

who protect the village. During the festival the man prays 

thrice to the Sun-god. His first prayer runs somewhat as Prayer to 
follows: “O Lord or Grandfather Sun, come down! The Sei 
fig-tree has put forth new shoots; the former shoots have 
turned to leaves and have fallen off. The pig’s flesh is 
ready, cut in slices. The canoes of the village are full to 
overflowing of offerings. Lord or Grandfather Sun, thou art 
invited to the feast. Cut and eat. Cleave the bamboo and 

drink. There are heaps of rice, there are packets of cooked 

rice. O drink indeed! We have given the heart of a fowl 
biaceistexcellent,the liver ofa pig’that is excellent. - The 

fowl has bright eyes, the liver of the pig is red in colour. 

O come indeed, Lord or Grandfather Sun! We expect that 

thou wilt give into our hands much ivory, much gold. Let 

the goats cast two or three young apiece. Let the number 

of the nobles increase, let the number of the people increase 

or multiply. Replace the dead goats and pigs by living ones. 


' According to Riedel (of. cz#. p. the time when the fig-tree changes 
372) the word foraka (sic) signifies leaf. This seems to be the season of 
the coming of the spirits to eat at the annual festival. 


Woman's 
prayer 

to the 
Sun-god 
Upulero 
for 
offspring. 


662 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONEST/A CHAP. 


Replace the rice and betel that are used up. Make the 
empty ricc-basket full, make the empty sago-tub full, that 
the village and the canoes suffer no lack.” In the Babar 
archipelago a special flag is hoisted at this festival as a symbol 
of the creative energy of the Sun; it is of white cotton about 
nine feet high, and consists of the figure of a man in an 
appropriate attitude.’ 

The Sun-god Upulero is thought to possess the power 
of bestowing offspring on. childless women. Hence in the 
Babar Archipelago, when a woman desires to have a child, 
she invites a man who is himself the father of a large family 
to pray on her behalf to Upulero. A doll is made of red 
cotton, which the woman clasps in her arms as if she would 
suckle it. Then the father of many children takes a fowl and 
holds its feet to the woman’s head, saying, “ O Upulero, make 
use of the fowl; let fall, let descend a child, I beseech you, 
I entreat you, let a child fall and descend into my hands and 
on my lap”. Then he asks the woman, “Has the child come?” 
and she answers, “ Yes, it is sucking already”. After that the 
man lets the fowl’s feet rest on the husband's head, while he 
mumbles some form of words. Next the fowl is killed at a 
blow by being knocked against the house-posts, in order that 
omens may be drawn from its veins or heart. Whether the 
omens are favourable or not, the fowl is laid, with some betel, 
on the domestic place of sacrifice. After that, notice is sent 
round the village that the woman has been brought to bed, 
and her gossips come and wish her joy. Lastly, her husband 
borrows a rocking-cradle from a neighbour, and his wife 


1 J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik-en 
hkroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en 
Papua, pp. 314 (Luang-Sermata), 337 
(Babar archipelago), 372-375 (Leti, 
Moa, and Lakor), 410 sg. (Keisar or 
Kisser) ; G. W. W.-C. Baron. van 
Hoévell, in Z7jdschrift voor Lndische 


(Kisser) ; J. H. De Vries, *‘ Keis door 
eenige eilandgroepen der Residentie 
Amboina”, 77dschrift van het Konitn- 
klijk = Nederlandsch Aardrifkskundig 
Genootschap, Tweede Serie, xvii. 
(Leyden, 1900) pp. 594, 612, 615 sg. 
(Babarand Kisser), TheSun-god’sname 


Zaal-Land-en Volkenkunde, xxxiii. 
(1890) pp. 204 sg., 206 sg. (Leti, 
Babar, Sermata, and Timorlaut) ; 7d., 
‘*Einige weitere Notizen iiber die 
Formen der Gotterverehrung auf den 
Siid-wester en Siid-oster Inseln”, /rzter- 
nalionales Archiv fiir Ethnographie, 
vill, (1895) p. 1343 J. A. Jacobsen, 
Reisen in die Inselwelt des Banda- 
Meeres (Berlin, 1896), pp. 123, 125 


is variously given as Upu/ero (Riedel), 
Upulera (van Hoévell), Upulere (De 
Vries), and Ofolere (Jacobsen). Ac- 
cording to Jacobsen (p. 123) the name 
Opolere is compounded of ofo ‘the 
Old Man,” and Jlere ‘*Sun.” I have 
described the festival more briefly in 
The Golden Bough, Part I. The A/agic 
Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 
98 sg. 


XVI THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONESIA 663 


rocks the doll in the cradle for seven days.’ In this ceremony 
the prayer and sacrifice to the Sun-god are reinforced by the 
imitation and pretence of motherhood : religion is assisted, as 
often, by sympathetic or imitative magic. 

Still farther to the north-east of Timor lies the Kei 
Archipelago. The pagan inhabitants of the islands worship a 
supreme god called Duad-lerwuan or Duadlera, who has his 
dwelling in the sun. His consort is Duan-luteh, a personifi- 
cation of the moon. The Sun-god is deemed the creator and 
also the sustainer of all things; he it is who bestows the rain 
and sunshine and fertility. The inhabitants of one of the 
islands (Du-roa or Dulah-laut) say that long ago the Sun- 
god descended to the island and, finding it uninhabited, 
fashioned puppets out of clay, into which he afterwards 
breathed the breath of life. The Sun-god is consulted when 
it is desired to ascertain the future, or when some offence has 
been committed for which punishment is feared, or again 
occasionally for the healing of sickness. His wife, the Moon- 
goddess, is hardly worshipped at all; only now and then an 
offering is made to her at the rising of the moon. The 
native pantheon includes a number of other deities, such as 
the god who guards seafarers, the god of agriculture, and the 
village gods. Images are made of all the deities. The Sun- 


god is represented as a man in a crouching posture, generally 


armed witha pike. His wife, the Moon-goddess, is portrayed 
‘as a woman, sometimes standing and sometimes sitting. The 
village gods are also represented in human shape either 
seated or standing. But while every village has its image of 
its own local god, either set up in the open, or protected by 
a roof, or lodged in a little wooden house, images of the Sun- 
god and the Moon-goddess are very rare; they are to be 
found, if at all, scattered here and there over the islands.” 

In former days, before the islands fell under the sway 
of the Dutch Government, wars were frequent among the 
natives of the Kei Archipelago. When it was determined 
to meet the foe in the field, or to attack his village, an 

1J, G. F. Riedel, De sluck-en Beschrijving der Kei-eilanden”, 77d- 
hroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en schrift van het Kon, Nederlandsch 
Papua, p. 353. Aardrijkskundie Genootschap, Tweede 


Serie, x. (Leiden, 1893) pp. 564, 
2 C, M. Pleyte, ‘‘Ethnographische 828 sg, 


Worship 
of the 
Sun-god 
and the 
Moon- 
goddess in 
the Kei 
Archi- 
pelago,. 


Offerings 
to the Sun- 
god before 
a battle. 


664 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONESIA CHAP. 


offering used to be made to the Sun-god, Duad-lerwuan, 
at sunrise on the morning of the battle for the purpose 
of ascertaining whether the expedition would be successful 
or not. The offering, which consisted of some gold scrap- 
ings wrapt in a banana-leaf, was intended to ensure the 
forgiveness of the deity for all sins that had been com- 
mitted. All the warriors who purposed to march out to 
battle carried the offering in procession to the beach, 
where the priest (smetuduan) waited to cast it into the 
sea. When that had been done, the warriors went down 
into the sea and ducked their heads thrice under the water, 
after which they returned to the village to gird on their 
weapons and don their amulets; for they might not thus 
array themselves until the offering and the purification by 
bathing had been accomplished. In full martial pomp they 
next assembled in the middle of the village to learn whether 
the Sun-god had accepted their offering. Meantime, while 
the men were down on the beach at their ablutions, the 
women had cooked a great quantity of rice and piled it on 
a mat in the place of assembly. All who were to take part 
in the fight now gathered in a circle round the heap of rice. 
The priest then commanded silence; and, rising from his 
place, the leader of the expedition stepped up to the heap of 
rice and gathered a_handful of the grain. Looking up to 
the sky he put the rice in his mouth, and endeavoured 
to swallow it at one gulp. If he succeeded, the Sun-god 
smiled on the undertaking ; if he failed, the expedition was 
deferred. All the warriors had to submit to the same 
ordeal: such as bolted the rice at one gulp went to fight: 
such as boggled or chewed the rice stayed at home and lived 
to fight another day. When the stalwarts had thus been 
sorted out from the chicken-hearted, they danced the war- 
dance in a circle round the priest, who, going from man to 
man, looked them in the eyes and bade them put all fear 
away. And as they marched out of the gate, the priest 
stood by it and gave his last blessing to the departing brave. 
When they had gone and the gate was closed behind them, 
the women who were left behind brought out from the 
houses certain baskets containing fruit and stones. These 
they anointed with oil and placed on a board, and as they 


XVI ITHE WORSHIP OF THE SUN ININDONESIA _ 665 


did so they prayed, saying, “O Lord Sun, Moon, let the Women’s 
bullets rebound from our husbands, brothers, betrothed, and "°° 
other relations, just as raindrops-recoil from these things and Moon 
which are smeared with oil”. And no sooner did the sound a 
of the first shot ring out than.the women dropped the baskets, 

and seizing their fans ran through the village waving them 

in the direction of the enemy. As they did so, they sang, 

“O golden fans, let our bullets hit and let those of the 
enemy miss!”* Here again religion is reinforced by magic ; 

the slipperiness of the oil and the waving of the fans were 

clearly supposed to parry such bullets as the Sun-god might 

fail to stop. 

At the conclusion of peace these pious islanders again The Sun 
invoked the Sun-god to witness their troth. The chiefs of (oo 
the two sides swore, saying, “O Lord Sun, Moon, and so witnesses 
forth, if I break my oath, if the opposite side breaks the ° one 
treaty, then may the head of the perjurer be stuck in the 
ground and his feet erected skyward both here on earth and 
in the life hereafter”. Finally an arrow, with a little gold 
fastened to it, was shot towards the sky, while all present 
raised a cry of “/u ju huwe!”* The Kei Islanders 
apparently conceive the Sun-god as the guardian not only 
of good faith but of the sanctity of the marriage-tie. 
When after a birth the infant persists in squalling, and 
other approved methods of stopping it have been tried 
in vain, the painful conclusion is forced upon the parents 
_that one of them has been unfaithful. A friend is called 
in to examine the matter. If he succeeds in eliciting a 
confession from the culprit, he offers some gold scrapings to 
the Sun-god (Duadlera) in expiation of the sin. 

The natives of the Kei Islands also resort to the Sun- The 


: . Sun-god 
god Duad-lerwuan for the healing of sickness. As Re tim 
commonly happens in the Indian Archipelago, the natives ear 

sick by 


attribute sickness to the agency of an evil spirit, who has osune 
taken possession of the patient’s body to torment and destroy Sas ; 
him. The Sun-god accordingly must be invoked to cast out Cacen . 
the devil, and for that purpose it is essential that he should them. 
himself enter into the body of the sufferer; indeed, how 
1C, M. Pleyte, of. czt. pp. 804 s¢. 2 C. M. Pleyte, of. cit. pp. 806 sy. 
3 C. M., Pleyte, of. c¢¢. pp. 818 sy. 


666 THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN INDONESTA CHAP. 


else could he expel the foul fiend? To facilitate this 
delicate operation the sick man is brought out of the house 
and set down in the yard, where the priest has already 
erected an altar. In front of the altar the priest thereupon 
sets a wooden vessel full of food, a sort of three-cornered 
hat, a chain of coco-nut leaves fastened together, and a cup 
of oil, behind which he spreads a small mat. Leside the 
altar a bamboo is thrust into the ground in a slanting 
position; on its top a coco-nut leaf is stuck, and at the 
lower end of the leaf a little bag is fastened to contain 
offerings. Then the priest puts on his official costume, and 
with his face turned towards the sun kneels down on the 
mat. After that he takes the three-cornered hat, which is 
made of the leaf of a coco-nut palm, and anoints it with the 
oil from the cup ; then standing up he claps the hat on his 
head and sets the dish of food on the altar. Some of the 
food he takes and puts in the little bag as an offering to 
induce the Sun-god to descend and settle on the coco-nut leaf 
impaled on the bamboo; the rest of the food he scatters 
on the ground as an offering to the souls of the dead. 
Next he tries to ascertain whether the Sun-god will consent 
to help or not. For this purpose he splits a coco-nut in 
two, and, after waving it thrice circularly in the air, lets 
it fall on the ground. From the position in which the 
two halves of the nut rest on the ground he infers 
whether the Sun-god will lend his aid or not. If the 
omen is favourable, the sick man is connected with the altar 
by the chain of coco-nut leaves, which serves the Sun-god 
as a Jadder that enables him to descend into the body of the 
sufferer from the coco-nut leaf. At the same time the priest 
entreats the deity so to do. As soon as he perceives that 
the god has complied with his request, he stops praying 
and watches until the patient has made an involuntary 
gesture, which the priest accepts as a sign that the demon 
of sickness has been driven out, and that the patient will 
recover.’ 

To the east of the Kei Islands lies the Aru Archipelago. 
The Aru Islanders also worship the Sun, the Moon, and the 
Earth as powers that exercise great influence on human life, 

1 C. M., Pleyte, of. cit. pp. 62 sg., 829-831. 


XVI THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN IN. INDONESIA 667 


and accordingly they offer them sacrifices. Once more the Worship of 
: : the Sun, 
natives of the Watubela Islands, situated on the north-west yy.) ng 


of the Kei Islands, revere Grandfather Sun (Zata lat hola) Earth in 
Fou es ‘ : 4 the Aruand 

as the male principle in nature in contrast to Mistress Earth Watubeta 

(Latu hila la balaa or Latu. bumu). Offerings are made to Islands. 

the Sun-god through the agency of a priest to secure the 

divine favour on various occasions, such as in sickness, on a 

voyage, at hard labour in childbirth, and in war ; and further 

people render thank-offerings to the same deity on their 

return after a long absence. The offerings consist of rice, 

sago, bananas, roasted fowls, betel, and so forth. All the 

food, after being presented to the deity, is consumed by 

the priest.” 


ayer Gs F. Riedel, 22 sliuk-en “Papua, p. 252; 
hroesharice rassen tusschen Selebes en BONG Ute ee RICOel, Of, C81, Ds 195! 











J ee 7 a nF a Vy 6 a ia P 
IN EY Sloe ke 4 eee 


wt * 4 ’ f Rc oh Tal ase 
; - ban ets 9 a 4 vi : A; . a 

ay ee eS, ek ene 
‘ae \ i alten e 28 Ma “ 
a SOA a Ne 

7 4 a ., ‘ 
4 
a ‘ : bd 


a ees Fae LE Nie oe bye 












f : ; ‘ } ants 
i oO ° LAD | ‘# -) — ‘ ra oe BON ns ‘a: 
J = ag) , re rss y es 
Pn \ ~ or" 
i } ay t. My 4 a 
; wa a3 :- w tS. : te 
viet a } ’ me io tare ro wey a) re orc "2% Bhi 
: ; . Cee he ata it 
7 ta" ‘ = At t wily 6 iets ma 
Pt tM pela 2 Va csi a a Atal Gee: Creig oho hag 
j , ' : it a % — 
ae 7 4 sig a 
os * 
; ” i ‘ 
ae} fo P - 
\ ; : o\ 
’ = dos ¥ 
bd 4 j 
{k j . i 
ee & say, ; 
. a “ ‘ wa | - ay es Bal Ly ‘ : 
’ ' “ oY 3h Gen 
; i pen " oP 
_ m 5 
NY us 1 rag y tS ~ 
y A. a ae Pee 
' es bi : 
x i = yi 
i? vols: J ‘ at « 
v, * yf 4 ‘ ap i > 
j a f “ eek a. eg 
p dean 77%, 
= Ps : 4 . t 
<5 + “ Ll 
. > bakes 
- ya 
5 y! re . i. ’ / 
ps - * fas a7 a 
y 
f 7 a 
~ , : wi, n “ i 
a ae 
y we. = 
: . ef is BA i 
* - v % ae 
J is rr 
\ " is 
t ; ae 
Pid ' 4 
a * a e 
. ,. 7 val Ti 
i Le aan 
+ be - 
ey S| 
’ 2, bis 
J a4. 
j ae Bi teat ot ae 
: : ’ ve 
. , * . 
ay a ‘ S it) £4h-97) 
, i ra ~e ‘: 
a t | « 
F 4 as - 4 ; 
ul rc Vado al 
r i bo a id 
‘ i nl ‘« ae 4 “5 fs 
toes he 
oY 4 i f, 49 
* “2 ‘ ’ 
, Nl t 
id Tr 
wi F fi <w) 7 rea 
= ‘ i § . 
S j Re Y 
} 
F ‘ xT enh tee 
» te. 
rs ol i . . ee Ae it 7 
"" : : ' 2 . 
fe Ads oo 
oe oe ars 
i a ere ’ p vy 
5 e Vy" 4 
‘* + ° ‘ fy r * 3 A 
By ' 3a 
; a hm pra, 
rs pi py gfe oan ‘ 
™%? ' i x Oe ss 
j ; ‘ } -s re 
io Pes | 2% | Mgt bev as i] feat y wt Pie iat " 
' ; 1 : ' 
J ‘ OA cid : "2 
aS Ss sitet) virteet hua atalaas 
‘ Fi - J 
. ane — i, i 
Jj ' , : 7 i , is 
“ u 4 ’ ~ oe ae * 
+ nd 4 
. wes mw Cir 
, , ‘; » * yt 
’ = eg ee a 
8 ¥ prve sf Tha — 
’ Fi t Mi i 
A Ls ‘ 4 
: i ‘ Pil 
bh i 7 = ie “ 
‘ ? af % 
ot pide ad a) | aes 7 
, it . ae Lo i? a 
7 c at ed i: ’ 
. “> os 2 ~ 
_ 7 fh 4 af 7 - 
#, Ae ‘ j 3 ae 4 Fie) ne busty 
; et? be hat, ee: 4 
= ‘ Mo hy ie Stee A, 
i we ] { i€2 > NS, ef a 
1 a he Te 
¢ = ih; ti @ - 
pRSI Eh eeibe: 
* 4 oe 
Aaya’ i ; 4 ay cia 
= ate ri’ Taek os 
, , 4 s a 
Pag + than . ae 9 “e - 
? + » Se aa j ae 7 “= boa 
A ma arr ’ T r 2 i) ‘oe Ties ve 
; ‘ Veen Woe eee Ne Rh eee? 
1 Lb ’ 7 re - 4 4) 
r] 5 ’ : Ph af hr ijt 
: 4 aie 28. ‘ 
m ? a. > a ae er Ss, 
S| = - sor he 


APPENDIX 


THE slORY OF °=THE: FALL ‘OF MAN 
ANOTHER AFRICAN VERSION : 


In the text I have noted many African stories of the Fall of 
Man or the Origin of Death.t Since the chapter containing them 
was written and in type I have received another version through 
the kindness of Mr. Frank Worthington, C.B.E., formerly Secretary 
for Native Affairs for Northern Rhodesia. He tells me that his 
informant belonged to the Matotela tribe, which inhabits a stretch of 
country lying between the Njoko and Lui rivers, tributaries of the 
Zambesi river on the left bank; the Lui river joins the Zambesi near 
the foot of the Barotse valley. The story was told to Mr. Worthington 
towards the end of rg1r._ It runs as follows: 

“Gf the many curios which I acquired during my twenty-five 
years’ residence in Africa, there is one which I value above all others. 
_I bought it a few weeks before I left the country. 

“It is a round wooden pot with a lid to it. On the lid is the 
seated figure of a little old man with his back hunched up, his chin 
resting in his two hands, his elbows on his knees. There is a mildly 
amused expression on the rudely carved face ; whether this is there 
by accident or design, I cannot say. 

“On one side of the pot is a snake in relief; on the other a 
tortoise. 

‘‘T bought this pot from a very old native. So old was he, that 
his scanty knots of hair were quite white and his eyes were very dim. 
He must have been a fine enough man once, but now his dull, 
greyish-black skin clung in folds about his gaunt frame. 

‘“‘T paid the old man the modest price he named, and asked him 
the meaning of the figures on the lid and sides of the pot. 

“The following is his explanation, given in short, jerky sentences, 
done into English as literally as our language will permit: 

“Ves, it wasa long timeago. So long ago was it that no white 


1 See above, pp. 105 sg., 114, 117, 195, 199, 213 sg., 214 5y., 216:5g., 217 
133 5g., 136, 149, 162, 163, 167 sg., sy., 218, 221, 222, 223, 234 5¢., 
169; 172 sg., 176 sy., 177, 185,192 57., 235 Sg:5 255-258. 

669 


670 ALPEN ILS 


man had then come to this country. It was before my father’s day. 
Before that even of his father. Both died old men. Yes, so long 
ago was it, that only the old people now speak of those past times. 
It was when men did not grow old and die. ‘There was no death 
then ; all men lived on, and happily. 

“One day all this was changed. God became angry—that is 
God on the lid of the pot. What foolish things men did to make 
God angry, I cannot say. He must have been very angry. 

“ “In His anger, God sent His messenger of deathto men. He 
sent His messenger the snake. Then people began to die—that is 
the snake on the side of the pot. 

‘“¢So many people died that all became frightened. They thought 
all would soon be dead. In their fear they cried to God. They 
said they were sorry for their foolish act—whatever that might have 
been. ‘They promised they would anger Him no more. ‘They 
begged Him to recall His messenger the snake. 

““* After a while God agreed. He said He would recall His 
messenger, the snake. He promised to send another messenger— 
that is the second messenger on the other side of the pot. God sent 
the tortoise to recall the snake.’ 

“The old man paused and mused for a little while, and then 
resumed : 

‘““* When I was a young man, I thought to myself perhaps the 
tortoise will overtake the snake: that some day he will deliver God’s 
message. JI am an old man now. I do not think the tortoise will 
ever overtake the snake—at least, not in my time.’ 

“He said all this without a trace of emotion. He was too much 
of a philosopher, it seemed, to indulge in anything so profitless as 
self-pity. 

“*¢T)o you kill snakes when you see them ?’ I asked. 

“*No!’ said he. ‘Why should I? But Ido kill tortoises. The 
tortoise is very lazy. He runs with his message so slowly. More- 
over, a tortoise is good meat.’ 

‘‘ Having told his story and pouched the price of his pot, the old 
man rose painfully and hobbled away. 

‘“‘Just outside my compound gate, he paused and made a vicious 
stab at something in a patch of grass. 


‘‘Shouldering his assegai, he passed on his way; a writhing 
tortoise impaled upon the blade ”.! 

In the light of the African parallels which I have cited we may 
conclude that this Matotela version of the Fall of Man or the Origin 
of Death is a genuine native myth and not a mere distorted echo of 

1 F. Worthington, C.B.E., Deputy ‘during the Great War, April 30, 1919, 
Chief Censor, London, ‘‘Life and p. 6. Printed and published by Dazly 


Death,” Zhe Mail Bag, A Souvenir of Post Printers, Wood Street, Liverpool. 
the Postal Censors Office at Liverpool 


LO LORY ORV LAE ALLZOOF MAN. 671 


the narrative in Genesis. For it conforms to what we may call the 
stereotyped story of the ‘lwo Messengers, a messenger of life and a 
messenger of death, whom the deity. despatched to men, hoping 
and intending that they should profit by the message of life and so 
live for ever. But through the fault of one of the messengers the 
glad tidings of immortality miscarried, and man remained or became 
mortal and subject to death. ‘The two messengers are always 
animals. In the Matotela version they are a snake and a tortoise, 
the snake acting as the messenger of death, and the tortoise acting 
as the messenger of life, and it is through the slowness of the tortoise 
in carrying his message that man has been deprived of the boon of 
immortality. Now the tortoise acts the same fatal part in a story 
told by the Tati Bushmen to explain the origin of human mortality. 
They say that in the olden time the Moon wished to send a 
message to men, to tell them that as she died and came to life again, 
so they would die, and dying come to life again. So the Moon 
called the tortoise and said to him, ‘‘Go over to those men there, 
and give them this message from me. ‘Tell them that as I. dying 
live, so they dying will live again.” Now the tortoise was very slow, 
and he kept repeating the message to himself, so as not to forget it. 
The Moon was very vexed with his slowness and with his forgetfulness ; 
so she called the hare and said to her, ‘‘ You are a swift runner. 
Take this message to the men over yonder: .‘ As I dying live again, 
so you dying will live again’.” So off the hare started, but in her 
great haste she forgot the message, and as she did not wish to show 
the Moon that she had forgotten, she delivered the message to men 
in this way, “‘ As I dying live again, so you dying will die for ever”. 
Such was the message delivered by the hare. In the meantime the 
tortoise had remembered the message, and he started off a second 
time. ‘This time”, said he to himself, ‘“‘I won’t forget.” He came 
to the place where the men were, and he delivered his message. 
When the men heard it they were very angry with the hare, who was 
sitting at some distance. She was nibbling the grass after her race. 
One of the men ran and lifted a stone and threw it at the hare. It 
struck her right in the mouth and cleft her upper lip; hence the lip 
has been cleft ever since. That is why every hare has a cleft upper 
lip to this day. 

In this last story we read how men were angry with the animal 
which brought ‘the message of death and how they ill-treated it. 
Similarly the Matotela kill tortoises because they owe them a grudge, 
not indeed for bringing a message of death, but for bringing the 
message of life too late and so depriving men of immortality. In 
a widely diffused story of this type the Two Messengers are the 


1 Rev. S. S, Dornan, ‘‘The Tati. Jogical Institute, x\vii. (1917) p. 8o. 
Bushmen (Masarwas) and their Lan- _ I have cited this story elsewhere (/o/k- 
guage,” Journal of the Royal Anthropo- lore in the Old Testament, i. 56 s9.). 


672 APPENDIX 


“= 


chameleon and the hare, the chameleon being the messenger of life, 
and the hare: being the messenger of death; and the Thonga and 
Ngoni, who tell the story, kill the chameleon whenever they get a 
chance, because by its slowness in carrying the message of life it 
was the cause of human mortality.t Similarly in the corresponding ~ 
Biblical narrative there is enmity put between man and the serpent, 
because the serpent is supposed to have brought death into the 
world, and in consequence it is said that men will bruise the serpent’s 
head.” Originally, no doubt, this bruising of the serpent’s head was 
meant in the most literal sense; men trampled on a serpent when- 
ever they could, just as some people in Africa kill a tortoise or a 
chameleon for a precisely similar reason, because they look on the 
creature as the hateful agent or minister of death.. 

In both the Biblical and the Matotela version of the story the 
agent of death is a serpent, but in view of the frequency with which 
the serpent figures in the sad story, not only in Africa but in other 
parts of the world,? we need not suppose that this feature of the 
Matotela version is borrowed directly or indirectly from the Hebrew 
version ; both may be drawn independently from those springs of 
barbaric fancy which everywhere underlie the surface of humanity ; 
or if there has been borrowing, it is perhaps more likely that Judaea 
borrowed from Africa than Africa from Judaea. In any case we may 
conjecture that in all the stories of the Origin of Death, whether 
African or Judaean, in which the serpent figures, the original motive 
for introducing the reptile was to explain his imaginary immortality 
by contrast with the real mortality of man, though that feature has 
disappeared both from the Hebrew and from the Matotela version 
‘of the tale. 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, i. 3 See above, pp. 199, 218, 222, 223; 
63-65. Folk-lore in the Old Testament, i, 
2 Genesis iii. 15. 50 sg., 66-68, 74-76. 


END OF VOL. I 


Ls, = 


eo . 
. 
~ ba 


ee it 
"Agt oad 
aoe 


7+ 
2 







a) 


in 


CEE CPA ‘; 

SKS pee? <2. 
4 - 4 

ve Y 


, 
w heer 4 Pu Gar: 






} eu Weer Seite Ga 
a Se = i A) 4 


Sint 


‘ 
; 

98 - 
aie x 


| en a 
Mae 1 






% 
are 











eo ee 





4 
f 


74 


ibs 


s 


» 

















b 
ud 
i 


ete; 

oo eS 

. 

i ee | 
uy 

eet 


A Dae? 
' 
ahi * 
4, 7 
+ 
j Peay 
“ 
» 
‘: 
é 


tp 


4 












7 
Ate Gey 
eet 
‘ 
onl 
ae | A 
io =s 
4 24 
POGLS 
Lie | 
, re 
4 
@ 
: 
re 
p> Pi 
‘ fy) 
« 
Ate 
‘ 
5 
H 
; 
~ 
I 
; 
5 


> 
7 wy 
An 
ie 
%) 


{ a 
Are ‘ 
° 
* 
‘ 2 
< 
, 
x7 
Ss 
ss 
‘“ 


+ 











* 7 
+) : ie i 
4 ‘ 
! é 
4 ; te 
cA ' 
F ‘ va = 
’ ee 
5 ‘ 
‘ j : ; 
" : 
i 
) . 
' é 
= 
4 
y : 
Fy ys 
; t 
ae od | 
) = . 
” : 
* 
+ 4); 
“74 ~ ; 
+ 
i ; ‘ 
he 
j i aH 
1 
r . : 
' 
oe ; : 
? 
_ 
. Zh 
‘ 
We ; ; 
i . 
L , 
, ' 
’ 
, 
i 
‘ 
b. nid 
1 
r ; : 
f 33 
‘ 
. 
« 
~ 
=i 
~-. 
} * 
~~ 
sy 4 . 
i 
. t . : 
’ 
* 
‘ 
+ 
a 
Y — 
‘ 
f 
J 
é } 
i : . 
‘ ay 
‘ 
es Ce 
5 f . 
‘ a | 
o- ae ; (. . 
= he - ' 
4 ; . 
: J , 
‘4% 
ab i ; f 
' ft ba 
J : 
‘ 
. t 
7: J = 4 bo 
* ‘ \ ; 
» Ay 
. * : 
‘ aes ol be 
. @ 
: ; o i. Bie 
‘* < 
- ‘ ie ee 
ee 
; i 
‘ ¢ ek 
‘ 
i A@ t - 7 








aa 
‘mT 
we | Duy pa 
: x = 
Bi Ry (- AT 7 oe gt rn 
Aaeh GeO ve; 
= ee | es ag i, 
poe @e bos te 
rity Mets is 
a5 vie 
ang? i’ as 4 
7 A oe ae ae 
“y Wil ae! 
eS . a 
Se Ae BY he 
bd : 
‘ v4 
7 sh re, 
fan | sh x 
5 
' - rm, 
af ‘ 
= y 
j ' 
~ 
oa 
, .: ‘ 
. Apr P 
mg 
“, 
E eu 
. x 
: 1. 
OF A 
<a 
is) Bowe 
ST 4) 
F et} 
’ 
= i 
\ 
’ 
4 
. 
1 
’ ‘ 
ri 
, F, 
J — 
‘ 
: 
: 
i 
‘ 
' 
J as) 
: 





Aer 


asf i 
Pa (at 
Rte mo 


‘Sih ei sy) Jt ie a 
Wiha moet ec an ve 


Tod ‘ 
Cae 
af see, #4 





DATE DUE 





< 
uv 
3 
z 
a 
W 
ie 
Zz 
ra 
a 


a Q 

c 

Oo 

- 

» > 

< 

: .U) 
a 
be 





BL435 .F84 
The worship of nature, Volume I. 


Princeton Theological Seminary—Speer Library 


1 1012 00162 4263 





